maskormenacelogs | anime trope time

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anime trope time

WHO: Wolfwood, Cecelia
WHERE: Endeavor Center, Maurtia Falls
WHEN: March
WHAT: anime trope time
WARNINGS: anime trope time (it's fine dw)

Maurtia Falls is the second-to last place Cecelia ever wants to be at in this weird world, but sometimes it can't be helped. Well, it can, but it'd put you in poor standings with people you rely on to keep an uninterrupted flow of content streaming into your hands and in refusing to go out and do an errand in the second-to last place Cecelia ever wants to be at in this world she risks the integrity of exactly that and--

Anyway.

Maurtia Falls. Thank gods not the downtown area, so it's less a pain beyond the Porter itself, but some imPort-founded youth center nearer to the suburbs. That's fine. Just...dropping off a few donated books on the De Chima library's behalf! She can do this. It's fine. Hell, if she can find the center's library on her own, she won't even have to talk to anyone! She's really banking on that and hoping the signage in this place is decent and up-to-date...

"Huh-?"

Cecelia stops mid-step, her ears picking up something besides the echo of her shoes on the linoleum. She frowns, straining to hear it again amidst the general hum of electricity and chatter of children, because if she wasn't crazy, she kind of thought she heard...

No.

Really?

This can't be right. Frowning, she shifts her hold on the box of books and turns, following her ears and that familiar sound until it leads her to a particular doorway she can slowly, carefully creep toward...

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The room, she'll find, is a sort of general activities one geared towards the younger set. Wolfwood doesn't notice anyone creeping up on the open door, likely because he's currently crouched down trying to separate two five-year-olds. A red-faced brunette girl and a pouting blond boy have been, judging by the fallen toy between them, having a disagreement over the outcome of a game of connect four.

"Stop pulling her hair." Wolfwood glares at the boy, who is putting up a token struggle against the hand on his shoulder. "If you're upset you lost, get better at playing. Don't take it out on someone else." He lets go of the girl's shoulder, and she promptly takes a few steps back towards the door. The boy nods, and makes another try to escape

Wolfwood's not having it. "And?"

The boy looks towards the girl. "Sorry."

"That's better." Wolfwood releases his grip, freeing the boy to run further back into the room while he stands up. And blinks as he finally catches sight of the door. "Red?"

"Ah--uh-!"

Red indeed; Cecelia's face heats up the second she's spotted, herself frozen in place like the idiot she obviously is. Stupid! Now she looks like some kind of nosy busybody when she was only briefly being a nosy busybody! And for good reason, too! It's not every day she discovers her smell, sourpuss neighbor has a soft spot for children.

This requires tact and grace. Quick! Come up with a good reason for dropping eaves!

She darts out of view instead, hustling down the hall a few steps before stopping and just marveling at her lunacy as her heart hammers in her chest, liable to burst out like some grotesque parasite as sick of her stupidity as she is.

What was that about? Geez, she startles so easily, he never knows what he's supposed to do.

She was carrying books though, right? Maybe they're new donations.

Wolfwood turns to the girl by the doorway. "Susie, if Calvin bothers you again, come find me." Susie nods, and Wolfwood sets off down the hallway.

It's not exactly hard to find Cecelia, standing frozen as she is like, well, a startled animal. He sighs. He's going to get accused of something stupid. Again.

"Looking for the library?"

Cecelia squeaks, as if she should be surprised. She's really not -- not when she's gotten so familiar with his gait and the feeling of looming presences when it comes to him. Even so, can anyone blame her for wishing she went by unnoticed?

No? Yes?

Ugh.

She peeks over her shoulder, eyes wincing and mouth twitching.

"Um. Ye-yes? Yes. Actually, yes...that's. What I was...looking for. Hi. Hello. I didn't know you were a babysitter? That's--um. That's new...information."

He doesn't teach them to smoke, does he?!

Anyone would think he'd done something to terrify her. He settles back on his heels, stifling a sigh.

Babysitter? Well, with that group, he guesses it's not the least accurate term. And at least it's not some weird accusation. "I've been helping out running some of the programs here. Those are some of the kids whose parents need somewhere for them to stay after school until they can be picked up."

He looks at the box. "Didn't know you help with charity."

"I, I owed a favor to the De Chima library," she replies, her eyes down on the box. "I don't actually...make a habit of this. I didn't really think to before honestly? It's not something that I thought of on my own, that is. You know. So."

So...so that makes her sound lazy and selfish? Gods dammit. She clears her throat and lifts her head back up.

"But tending to children! That's...distinctly noble. Of you. Of anyone, I guess, but...I guess I'm just...surprised, is all."

Is it really that surprising? He blinks, realizing that Cecelia actually doesn't have any reason to expect it. They keep ending up in awkward situations, or dangerous ones, or awkward dangerous ones. Not much reason to discuss things like work or volunteering, or relationships to city libraries.

Still, it's strange when someone is taken aback by something that feels so ingrained.

"Still good of you to help out." He starts walking. The library's close to the other end of the building.

"I grew up in a church orphanage, so I'm used to looking after kids."

It's much easier to have this kind of conversation while his back is turned, so Cecelia follows dutifully behind. The revelation of his origin makes her eyebrows shoot up with surprise and curiosity, her heart sipping a beat.

A church orphan...? A, a big brother type? Him?

...Wait.

"Did...all the children smoke where you're from?"

"What? No!" He looks over his shoulder to shoot her a look of baffled indignation. As if Aunt Melanie would have let them get away with that.

He faces forward again. "No I...picked that up after I left."

Picked a lot of things up. Most of them bad.

Wow, what was with that look?! Cecelia glares at his back.

"It's a valid question, Wolfwood," she snaps back. "I don't know how humans get raised where you're from -- I hardly know how they get raised here!"

She huffs, letting much of her ire taper out. Gods, she did not come here to get snippy? She's here to drop books off and leave before getting, like, mugged. Maurta Falls has a reputation she a hundred percent buys into thanks to tabloids!

"Still...a church orphanage..." She frowns, contemplative, eyes flickering down to the floor as they walk. He could stand to stride a little slower, him and his godsdamned tree legs; it takes effort to keep up and not be winded! Certainly not her fault for being so poor in athletics.

"It must've been difficult."

Oh come on, surely she's not that clueless. Who would ever teach kids to smoke?

Any sharp reply, though, gets headed off by her next words. He does glance back over his shoulder again, but this time out of simple surprise. "Huh?"

But that is the standard story, isn't it? The poor orphan in the terrible orphanage, who is one day lifted out of suffering by some caring, well-to-do figure who adopts them.

You don't hear much about cases where it's the other way around.

He turns his attention back to the hall in front of them, his pace slowing slightly without him realizing it. Some things really are easier to say if you don't have to see how the person you're talking to reacts to it. "No, it wasn't difficult. We didn't have much, but no one ever went hungry. If you got hurt, you always knew there'd be someone there for you. They did everything they could." He looks up to the side. They'll need to take the next branching hallway on the right. "That place was my home."

True, no place was really perfect, and even an idyllic childhood could have some snags. But to Cecelia, church orphanage sounds far from ideal...even if he says it was fine. But it's his word and experience versus her impressions, and she knows what wins out or even matters in the end.

"Is that...the sort of place you'd rather be? Instead of here?"

He turns right, raising a hand to motion her to follow down this smaller hallway. It’s mostly offices and storage here.

How the hell does he answer that? It’s not the sort of place that Wolfwood misses, really, it’s the place itself. It’s the people that made it. You’d think he’d be used to the idea that he’ll never see any of them again, unless for some reason they end up here. He’d never meant to go back when he was alive, after all. He’d just…had to, in the end. Dying should have simply put the nail in the coffin (ha). But maybe being used to an idea still doesn’t stop it from hurting, sometimes.

He shrugs. “I’d rather be where I can do something. Right now, that’s here.”

"And that something is...tending to children here." As opposed to orphans there.

...Gods, is that why he stalked her around when she was upset? He thinks she's, like, five?! Gods. Just because she was acting like one doesn't mean...!

Okay. Whatever. Cecelia? Not everything is about you. Thank gods. She huffs, trying to force that train of thought well off-track.

"That is noble of you."

Noble makes it sound like a sacrifice, like some sort of grand stand against the evils of the world. Well, he supposes it is a stand against the evils of the world. The everyday ones that are no less harmful than the dramatic threats, the kind that leave kids alone and hungry.

Still, it's not noble. He's pretty far from noble, after all. It's just...right.

He shrugs. "Until whatever disaster turns up this month."

"What do you mean by that?" She squints at him. "This is just a temporary passing of your time?"

"No!" He looks back at her, sharply. How does he always manage to stick his foot in his mouth around her?

No, it's that she always interprets things in a way that means he's stuck his foot in his mouth.

"I just mean that there's always something happening to mess things up."

She bristles at his glare, ready to go on the defensive. Why? Why not! Of course she'd expect the need to defend herself! He's taller and louder and ruder!

"Tr-true," she concedes, her tone a bit dry. "Though saying things like that...makes you sound like one of the more veteran imPorts, you know..."

As opposed to a wayward vagabond, carried around by the winds of fate -- the impression she gets from him. The way she writes him.

"Hah, you should see the planet I'm from. Everywhere you go there's some bandits or other assholes trying to blow things up." Literally and figuratively. "Not that different here."

He the next door they come to he stops, and opens it. Behold, the library! And the books scattered in haphazard stacks on tables, and the shelves filled with a complete disregard for the Dewey decimal system!

Hah?

He knows how to hah?

...Well, it's a sardonic kind of hah, so maybe that's not a huge revelation, all things considered. Still, a new sound to her, one that makes an ear quirk.

In any case, she won't try to nitpick it now, not with the opening of a door effectively changing the scene itself. She pokes her head in, giving the place a glance-around.

"Gods...does no one manage the books in this place?" she wonders, squinting. "It's more like a mad researcher's den than any kind of lending library..."

...It really is a mess, isn't it? He scratches his head. "I know Katherine comes in sometimes to organize things, keep track of the new books and what's currently out." But it's definitely sometimes - he's not sure she has a regular schedule.

They really do need to properly set up a schedule for the volunteers. He sighs, softly. He didn't sign up for this level of organizing, but he's...probably signed up for this level of organizing. Ugh.

"I can't imagine I can parse what in heaven's name her system even is-- no color arrangement, lettering..." She squints at some spines within her view. "Theme, perhaps? No--"

She cuts herself off, pressing her lips together, realizing she was about to just...take over and do it herself. But it's not actually her place, is it?

But this place looks dreadful. These poor books...

After a beat, she makes a soft, frustrated noise before looking up at Wolfwood with a pained noise.

"Would this Katherine be very put out if her organization were...further organized?"

This really seems to be a personal affront to her. Well, books are Cecelia's thing. She's even here because of a library.

"She'd probably appreciate it." Katherine just sort of generally helps to organize some of the less-used rooms. He doubts it's any kind of personal calling. (Really, even he can tell that if it was, the room wouldn't look like this.)

"Oh thank gods."

With that permission granted, Cecelia doesn't waste another second, bustling in and grabbing at the nearest stack of books and bringing them over to one of the less-occupied tables.

"Even alphabetical couldn't possibly be that hard, to say nothing of categorizing these by age bracket or theme..." She clicks her tongue, investigating spines for titles. "But I suppose if this is a matter of young people running in and grabbing things all willy-nilly...say--" She glances over her shoulder. "There wouldn't happen to be spare boxes anywhere, would there? Decently sized, not like...like shoeboxes or small stuff."

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