maskormenacelogs | something something reflections something

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something something reflections something

WHO: Marty and Ruka
WHERE: Outside MF#10
WHEN: Weekendy
WHAT: Two sads intersect
WARNINGS: ?

The self-imposed exile to the interior of the house is starting to lift a bit: Encouragement from those who look after him has him at least conceding to some fresh air, if not now-and-then chaperoned excursions. But all that initiative comes from them, not Martin, who is still very convinced any independent actions he takes are just steps that'll lead everyone to disaster. It's been true so far, after all.

Martin pushes the goofy, wide-frame sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose again; they keep slipping, being a size or two big for him. He sits cross-legged on the lawn with a book in his lap -- a very rudimentary book that's more pictures than words, but it's tough enough for him. Most of the things depicted or spelled out are alien to him, after all -- this is as much a lesson in the world as it is trying to figure out reading altogether.

He's...fairly sure this is pointless, though. He has to try to be smart, be less of a stupid burden, but he's convinced that it's a foregone conclusion. He's failed at most any other aspect already, why should this be any different?

Still. It's...something to do. If he can't do anything else but get in the way, then this is...something.

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There's a strangeness to the four imPort cities; Ruka's lived in all of them, at different times over the years, but it never really settles how different one is from another until she's making a daytrip like this. Compared to De Chima, Maurtia Falls has a grayer, gloomier mood; even when it isn't actually raining, there's a coolness to the atmosphere and the people that comforts her. It's where she and Karkat had moved, once they were sick of Heropa's brightness; she's pretty sure it's where Kanaya would have put their belongings into storage, once it had seemed clear that Ruka wasn't coming back last time. It was just a matter of finding the right storage company, and convincing them to give her access. (Or breaking in herself. One of the two.)

She hadn't lived in the assigned housing district, but she visits it now for no real reason — it's not on the way, and she doesn't think she knows anyone around here. It's the one block she hasn't resided, of all the imPort-only neighborhoods, and, well, sometimes a girl gets curious. It's... alright.

It gets less alright the further into the neighborhood she gets. It's strange, she thinks; usually her empathy isn't so fine-tuned to catch the trail of someone's negativity from this far out, but as she passes each house, the feeling gets stronger. Like the odor of burning leaves, still caked with dry mud. Strange...

She continues along the path until the strange air of feeling seems to be at its thickest — like a heavy storm cloud, brimming with kept thunder, bleak and charged at the same time. There's more to it than that, but the remnants are nebulous at this distance. She stops in her tracks, gloved hands settling in her jacket pockets, and she glances towards the dire source.

... It's just a boy. A child, easily, sitting in the thick grass with a book across his lap. Not what she was expecting, with an air like that, but the look of things can often be deceiving. There's a faint sense of struggle, and part of her wants to help, but at the same time — well, it probably would be weird, wouldn't it, some random woman talking to some kid at his own house? Even if she means no harm, she doesn't always look the type. At the same time...

Ugh.

Ruka halts her stride, pivoting on one heel to face the kid more directly; she doesn't step off of the sidewalk.

"Hey," she calls, pushing her hands deeper into her pockets, forcing her shoulders to relax and seem as casually non-threatening as possible. "I don't mean to intrude, but, is everything alright?"

Which is intrusive by merit of them being strangers, but the boy seems miserable, and Ruka was a kid in a world like this, once. Misery is much more intrusive.

He's getting more accustomed to the sound of passing traffic, but it always gives him a little flutter of unease in his stomach. Even so, he's forcing himself to keep his eyes down, train himself to not perceive every sound as a threat and be assured that not everything is out here to kill him. This new-world reasoning has a long, uphill fight ahead of it in the face of a lifetime of high stone walls, dangers lurking in the dark, and the strange emotional manipulations he's been built up from.

The latter is ready to pounce back into full form when the girl sounds off, startling him out of the frustrated trance rows of letters had him in. His head snaps up immediately, eyes wide behind darkened lenses as he looks around and zeroes in on the source.

It's as he feared: She's talking to him. Why. What did he do wrong now? Never mind that her remark isn't even about wrongdoing...

"Whu--what--" he stammers, straightening up out of his hunch...and then immediately starting to shrink back into it. "What? Sorry? What do you mean, I--I don't know?"

Oh, jeez. He looks like he just heard a gunshot, for how startled he looks and how quickly his anxious heart has swung to the forefront. Ruka holds both of her palms up in pantomime surrender — each gloved, but empty of any weapon. It doesn't mean much coming from an imPort, but the gesture might count for something.

"I don't mean to intrude," she repeats, more gently. "But, is everything alright? You... seemed upset, about something."

There's no mistaking the source of that weird sense of gloom, but telling him that he's leaking negativity doesn't seem prudent if he doesn't know about it already. He's a kid. That's how you give kids complexes.

Upset?

"I...I do?" Martin looks baffled. "Uh, sor-sorry, I...I'm not mad...?"

That's what she's getting at, right? Was he scowling on accident? Baring teeth? No-- that's an Ivan thing. He's pretty sure he doesn't make weird faces like that...

She shakes her head. "No, not, like, mad or angry. More like..."

Ugh. It's always hard for her to convey emotions clearly, in a way other people understand. She tries for metaphor, or analogy, but so often the comparison seems to fly over whoever she's talking to. It's hard to say things simply.

"... like, frustrated? Like something isn't going the way you wanted."

She forces herself to shrug, as though to dismiss her own worries; she should probably just drop the subject and get on her way. "But, maybe I was mistaken."

"...Oh."

Well, that's an understatement. There's a lot to be said about that, but it...it's odd that someone he's never seen before just up and says something like that. Is that--isn't that what Anderson talks about? Knowing feelings? There's a word for that, but he can't think of it right now, not when he's on the spot having to talk.

"Sorry, I...I guess, maybe that's true?" His eyes wince and he ducks his head. This brings the book back into view -- a pretty damn elementary picture book. "I mean...I...I'm not really good at this, so. Reading, I mean. Letters. Sorry."

Well, at least it's an answer, and they're both on the same (damn elementary) page. It's certainly not even in the top ten of worst things to be frustrated about, either; with a mire this thick, she'd almost worried someone had died.

As it is, she hooks her thumbs into the belt loops of her shorts, giving the kid an plain smile.

"It can take time, to get good at it." Unfortunately for the situation, she can't speak from experience — prodigy child, and all that — but she's had friends with... less than stellar book smarts. Still, the picture he paints is a curious one. Struggling to read whatever this is outside, and with sunglasses on — he doesn't seem like the sunbather type, not that there's a great deal of sun, like, ever around here. Maybe he's avoiding the people he lives with?

She glances once at the house, then back at the boy.

"Have you been trying for very long?"

He's not really lying, just bringing up the book. It's just easier than dredging up all the rest of the things that create the cloud of discontent that he lives in. But this is easier to tackle than the heavier things in the thick of it.

"Um, no," he admits, his face a little pink. "Just...the other night. A, a night or so ago, I mean. Archie said to start with just...these for now. Just the letters. Since...I mean, I don't really get how it all works, aside from names I already know."

And this world? This world has way more than a handful of names to memorize.

Not a name she recognizes, but that's hardly surprising. She doesn't go out of her way to get to know people.

"Oh, so, you're just beginning to learn?" It's with the same softness as everything else, lacking judgment. "Some of my old friends had a hard time too, when they started out."

She doesn't want to get into too much detail — most people don't like getting compared to monsters, no matter how kind — but thought strikes.

"You have a teacher, then? Someone that's helping you with it?"

He glances back up, trying to get a sense of why she's asking. She doesn't look mad, or annoyed, or...really anything bad. But he's been wrong before. But he eyes her all the same as he replies, because he's sure his answer isn't very good.

"Well, um...Ar-archie is helping. Rex, too. But they're busy right now. And--and I don't really have anything useful to do, so..."

"So you're practicing on your own."

She nods along; her gloved fingers comb through her stray bangs, pushing some of the loose hair away from her good eye. (The other remains shielded by fringe, even if she knows the eye patch isn't going to shift. The kid's timid enough that she doesn't think he'd ask about it, but that's no reason to draw attention to it.)

"That's pretty commendable. It's pretty difficult to learn a new language, on top of everything else here. Try not to beat yourself up too much, if you don't understand things right away, okay?" She shrugs a little, and smiles a little, but both are deliberate — the hesitant edge of someone who, even after all this time, has to decide how much she wants to show. "Nobody masters it all alone."

"..."

She sounds a bit like Anderson, saying something like that. And as a stranger, she doesn't really have much to gain by coddling, right? What would be the point? Besides maybe just being kind...

"I...I guess so," he admits, looking down. "I mean...I kind of thought...That is, that it's...probably easier for people to. Since...since this is their stuff..."

It's an unusual way to put it, and it's not entirely clear what he means by that. The easy interpretations are simple. People whose language it is? People from a world like this? Normal people?

"Sometimes, sometimes not. Some things are easier if you're already familiar with them. Like, once you learn one language, learning a second one isn't as hard. But even then, it's still hard to do alone."

And then, with the same softly casual voice as everything else, she adds, "humans don't always realize how much harder things are, for the ones who aren't."

"That...!" Martin's head lifts again, eyes wide. That statement resonates with Martin in a way he isn't even wholly cognizant of: it speaks to a lot of his built-up frustrations with trying to adapt and cope with the countless demands this world has to get by. Part of him wants to leap right on it -- an I know, right?! kind of cry, grateful that an uninformed observer can put into words so easily what he can't.

"That's..." He swallows, his face a little pink. "I think that, too..."

Recognition, that ember of a feeling smothered and ignored sparking to life by the wind — he may stamp down on crying out, but the earnestness carries anyway.

Maybe this is why she felt the need to stop, in the first place.

This time, her smile is genuine. "My name's Ruka, by the way." She shrugs a little, apologetic. "I'm human, but most of my friends growing up weren't. When I was first ImPorted, a lot of the friends I made weren't, either, even if they looked like it."

Even after so many years of an existence like this, with more people from more worlds, with such a long history of those kinds of exposures, those problems... things tended to cycle, didn't they?

"Sometimes humans forget what they can't see easily."

"Oh..."

His mouth tugs, trying to pull out a smile, but he still feels pretty embarrassed of himself. Kindness is hard enough, let alone from a stranger who has really no need to bother at all.

"I...I guess that's true, maybe," he nods. She's the expert, not him. "Ni-nice to meet you, ma'am. Ruka. Sorry. Um. I'm, uh, Martin. Hello."

"It's nice to meet you, too, Martin."

It's such an ordinary name; not the type she'd expect from someone who doesn't consider himself human. (Unless he's a Martian, maybe? Plays on names like that aren't uncommon, right...?) Still, it's easy to keep herself from looking surprised by it.

As for the way he hedges and apologizes — that's fine. She remembers being a little like that when she was younger, too. "I hope it gets easier for you. The reading, I mean. It might take a while, but once you have it down, it's a lot easier to get around a place like this."

"Oh, ah...tha-thank you." His head dips. "That's nice. Nice of you to say..."

It is. She's very nice. But that ever-present gloom won't be parted or banished simply by that; he doubts much good will come of him trying, but...trying is all he can do. At least, up until it's proven that trying is wasted on him. But that call is on other people, not him.

"I hope so..."

He does, actually, even if he can't convince himself it'll happen; he's not completely lost to despair, even when he's convinced he is. He's still for a moment before something shakes him to say more.

"Somehow...people are...counting on me to do better. So..."

"... Counting on you, to do better?"

That's a different sentiment than wanting or hoping — that speaks to responsibility. To a duty, a purpose, a necessity, a kind of thing that isn't usually the type of thing even adoptive parents foist upon their charges.

The mire of inadequacy, though... that's one she knows very well.

"How do you mean that? If... if you don't mind me asking."

"Oh, um." For a minute there Martin worries he said something unusual, but...no, he's sure he's got the right of it. But explanations aren't exactly his forte...

He fidgets, pulling the book off his lap and self-consciously scratching at his knee.

"I just mean...If I'm going to make it at all here, I have to do better. And...if I don't, then I'll just let them down. I...I don't want to waste their time, I mean."

He's delaying the inevitable; he's sure this'll come crashing down in a fiery or bloody heap somehow. But that doesn't mean he still isn't desperate to do right.

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