[FIN] Here's Looking at You, Kid

[TawnyAngel]

The flight from the forest to Camphoreon on Red had been a bit nerve wracking without two hands to hang on if he needed to but the Pidgeot had got him there in one piece without dropping him even a little. They'd set down in the park and he'd headed towards the mall, shoulders squared and purposeful stalking gait firmly engaged; he was used to people staring if they spotted his face, what was so different about them staring at his lack of an arm?

He didn't have an answer to that question but it was different. He tired to persuade himself that this was only because he wasn't used to it yet.

He probably could have minimized the stares with long sleeves and some kind of purely cosmetic socket prosthetic but a) he did not own such a prosthetic and b) ******** them all and the steeds they rode in on, let them stare if they damn well wanted to and he would look back at them like the scum they were. So, black tank top and black jeans along with the obligatory huge buckled boots were the order of the day; thanks to losing weight over the last few weeks the boots felt a little loose around his calves, his belt was on the wrong hole and his top was a bit baggy but the clothes still sent the right message... hopefully.



The place Aulus was now leaving possibly did not send the right message; it was a very fine chocolate shop with a huge chocolate fountain set as its centerpiece. He'd spent a little while staring at the flow when he first entered but the appearance of 'helpful' staff had drawn him out of contemplative reminiscence and spurred him on complete the task at hand.

As he stepped out of the shop holding a large, classy-looking, rather full bag Aulus considered that he might have slightly overdone it. Oh well, he was sure Tam wouldn't be complaining.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

While Seraphine used to love summer and hate winter, her tastes had kind of switched, if not mellowed entirely. She now preferred winter over summer, if only for one reason, and one reason alone: Winter (or early spring/late fall) was chilly enough to warrant multiple layers of clothing, under which she could hide her missing hand. Summer, unfortunately, was much too hot for that, and so the brunette spent the summer months in lighter clothing and showing off (as if) her disability. Inside the mall it was cooler, thankfully, and knowing this Sera had brought with her a thin, light hoodie that was currently draped over her short arm, hiding it from view for the time being, and that was just how she liked it.

Anastasia trotted along right at her trainer's heels, content to follow her wherever she went. Letting Sera go out without her was almost unthinkable, and any time the girl did leave her behind was absolutely horrendous. Luckily, this time, she hadn't made her stay behind, and the Umbreon happily stuck to the brunette so close she almost tripped her on a few occasions.

Sera almost tripped of her own accord suddenly though, as she came to an abrupt halt near some eccentric, overly-fancy chocolate shop she'd seen on multiple occasions and been in very few. It wasn't the shop that drew her attention though, so much as the person standing outside it. He looked rather tall and menacing and angry, but it wasn't his demeanor or attire that caused her to stop and stare; it was his arm, or rather, the space where his arm should've been, but judging from how angry the end of his arm looked, he probably lost it recently. In the entire year since she'd lost part of her own arm, she had never seen another person just out and about with only one arm. Oh, she'd seen several whenever she went for consultations about prosthetics in the hospital, but even there it wasn't a very common sight at all, so to spot someone in the mall without one was practically an anomaly, and Seraphine wasn't exactly sure what to do or say except stand there and stare rather openly.

Anastasia paused with a confused frown as she glanced up at her dumbfounded trainer. What did they stop for?  

[TawnyAngel]

Years of being intermittently nearly killed had given Aulus a pretty good baseline level of alertness to sudden change in his vicinity so when for instance somebody who had been going about their business suddenly stopped he wanted to know why. Usually it was because said somebody was grabbing for their ringing phone or because they were about to turn around and hurry back the way they had come, presumably they had just remembered an important task or that they'd left their card in the restaurant.

The girl who was now standing a few yards away from him however didn't do any of these things, in fact she did nothing at all other than stare.

Aulus fixed her with a dark glower. "Hey, why don't you take a picture? It'll last longer," he snapped acerbically.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

When he noticed and addressed her, it snapped her out of her reverie and she blinked a few times in rapid succession. What? Oh, he was angry. Well, she would've been too, if she caught someone staring at her arm. Angry or upset, one of the two. She shook her head with a light frown, "The hell would I do that for?" It occurred to her that he was missing part of his arm, and she was missing part of her arm, and so some sort of connection existed between them that they could discuss - something she hadn't ever really gotten the chance to discuss with anyone before - but how the hell did you go about starting that kind of discussion with a total (angry) stranger? 'Oh yes, hello, I see you've lost your arm, and very recently at that. I, too, have lost part of my arm, and so we have something in common that we can talk about. Let us engage in conversation about this' oh yes that would be perfect. Ugh, stupid.  

[TawnyAngel]

Still bristling Aulus gestured to himself. "I don't know but you appear to be fascinated by me. Struck by my peerless beauty perhaps? I'm sure I would look fantastic on your wall," he said, his voice oozing sarcasm. As he spoke however it occurred to him that her answer was definitely not from the standard hymn sheet; people on base he'd caught staring and called out had largely looked embarrassed and hurried away. Aulus' frown became faintly puzzled.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

The surprise from seeing someone else missing an arm faded from her expression, and Sera merely snorted at his response. "Oh please, you wish you'd look fantastic on my wall; fascinated my a**." No, no; she didn't want to be snarky to the first person she'd seen casually walking around with an arm missing. If he hadn't, she likely would've just gone right past him, but the fact he had suffered something almost identical to her kept her rooted to the spot, a desire to at least try to talk about it wedged firmly in her mind. Reminding herself of this, she made an effort - quite an effort, since he'd started it with the comebacks - to get away from that, and speak less smartly and more sincerely, though she wasn't sure how good a job she was doing because holy hell this was difficult, "I was.. I was just surprised, I guess."

Anastasia frowned, her ears flicking back as she circled her trainer uncertainly. This was strange, and that man was strange. Know what's not strange? Food, they should get food. Briefly she wondered if she could convey to her trainer that they should head to the food court, but decided against it; she seemed a little preoccupied now.  

[TawnyAngel]

This was also a non standard response. There were a hundred things he could say back to her boiling in his stomach, one of them rose up his throat to coil itself into his vocal chords and... stopped. What she had said was odd, sure, but what was really odd was the sudden departure from the snark she had been firing off a moment ago.

Aulus continued to scowl; he was rather good at it. "Surprised?" he queried guardedly.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

He hadn't continued his string of snarky comebacks, which made it easier for her to stay well away from slipping back into it herself. "Yeah," she eloquently confirmed, her fingers fidgeting over the fabric of the sweater still held over her short arm. For some strange, unfathomable reason, this was starting to make her rather nervous, but why? It wasn't as if he would judge her poorly, make fun of her for having a missing hand - that'd make him a hypocrite of the highest order. So why was she nervous? Maybe because starting a conversation about such a sensitive topic was so difficult.

"Because," she started but paused, hesitating with a frown, still fidgeting with her sweater before she cast her gaze down to it as she slowly pulled it away and dropped both arms, "Because I haven't seen anyone else with-- like that," the brunette finished lamely. There, that might have been possibly marginally better than the 'so I see you've also lost an arm' bullshit running through her head a few moments ago.  

[TawnyAngel]

Now it was Aulus' turn to stare.

"What?" he said intelligently.

Her arm ended a little way above where a wrist should be. The residual arm looked quite neat, not like a new wound at all. He opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. No hand. Like him.

"Well.... me either," Aulus managed eventually, awkwardly. "So.... Hi. Kurt."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Awkward mode over, snark mode engaged.

"Quite a surprise to see someone else, isn't it?" She started, though her tones weren't at all negative; they were more lighthearted, amused. "You stared like I just did, so now you can't say s**t about me staring. Seraphine," she added when he offered his name, haphazardly (and with only a bit of difficulty) folding her hoodie up to carry it easier in her hand as she chanced moving closer to a more appropriate distance for a conversation, "but Sera's just fine. So," the brunette waved vaguely at the direction of his missing arm, "that looks pretty recent. Mine happened a little over a year ago - last summer. Car accident," she added with what she hoped was a casual shrug, as if it didn't matter, as if the anniversary of the accident and her father's death hadn't been just a scant few weeks ago.  

[TawnyAngel]

Well there wasn't a lot he could say to that.

He couldn't help but watch her struggling to fold up he hoodie, it was a difficulty that was already becoming far too familiar to him.

"Okay, fair cop," Aulus said after a rather noticeable pause, giving a slight shrug of his shoulders. "I just assumed you were..." Normal. "Uh.... Yes, it is. A bit more than a month. Motorbike." This was the excuse that he had pre-prepared for his friends(?) at the dojo; flying off his bike then hitting the ground was consistent with the damage that had led to... yeah, all of this. "It uh.... Sera. Nice to meet you." Was that the sort of thing you were supposed to say under circumstances like this? He had not the faintest idea.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Ah," that made sense. She nodded in understanding. "Yeah, people do tend to stare, don't they? It's really obnoxious. I'm beginning to wonder if they ever stop but at least there's polite people who just pretend like everything's normal because they don't know how else to deal with meeting someone who's only got one hand," she said with a shrug. Then there were the people who made fun of her for it, but those were old high school classmates doing it specifically to her, and plus he looked like he could beat someone to a pulp with just his one hand, so she kind of doubted he'd have that problem.

His was shorter than hers, too - he probably wouldn't be able to really use it for anything except to maybe tuck something under his arm. Luckily for her - luckily, pah - hers was long enough that she could still manage to hold or do things with it. "Mmh," she frowned at his explanation, mostly due to how close it was to the cause of her own disability and the memories it dredged up, "that sucks." A pause. "Nice to meet you, too."

She didn't really have any idea either, but that never stopped her before, and so she forged ahead blindly. "So which's your dominant hand?"  

[TawnyAngel]

"Left," he added, lifting the bag a little and holding it on the heel of his thumb as he waggled his fingers demonstratively. "Lucky, I suppose." Lucky. Right. "Your Umbreon is beautiful." The markings might not be so much to his personal taste but there was no denying the quality of that breeding; he gave a polite nod to the pokemon itself. "Hello."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

His sudden cursing was amusing, if nothing else, but it felt pretty good to know that someone else went through almost the same thing she went through, and was feeling the same things she'd been feeling for a year now.

"Lucky; if that's what you want to call it," she said with a snort; she'd been thinking that same thing not a moment ago. "But yeah, I know what you mean; could've been your dominant hand and then s**t woulda sucked so much worse. I'm right-handed," so saying she held up her right hand, "so I guess I got 'lucky' too."

She hadn't expected the comment about her Umbreon - neither had said Umbreon - and both gave the man a curious glance. The dark-type, though, made a soft noise and perked her ears up, watching him curiously as her nose wiggled a bit while she tried to get a sniff at him without moving away from her trainer. It was kind of hard to do things when you didn't want to leave your trainer's side for a moment.

"Thanks," Sera said with some lingering surprise. "Her name's Anastasia."  

[TawnyAngel]

It could've been worse; hell he could very easily have died or lost Alex or Tam and he didn't honestly know what he would do if either of them hadn't made it. That didn't make him feel much better about his situation but nevertheless he nodded and shrugged vague agreement. "Sucks enough as it is, can't imagine not having my dominant hand." It was bullshit. Everything, everything was difficult from getting up in the morning to going to sleep at night. Some people got it better than others, the ones who got it better being his friends but maybe that was just because they got him. Damned if he knew. Anyway, even that wasn't... it wasn't.... They got it but they didn't get it. There was probably a better way of phrasing that but he couldn't conjure it up in his mind.

There were more pleasant things to talk about though and so he tried to focus on that; he gave another nod. "I've always wanted to train an Umbreon; hi Anastasia." Aulus crouched down, set his bag on the floor and extended his single hand towards the dark type so that she could sniff him properly.