[META-PRP] Lost and Found (Emiola & Masoal)

[Melancholies]

 

[Melancholies]

It was quiet, which was to say the noise level was about the same as it had been the past few nights, but for Emiola it was starkly less audible without the grumbling of her tealblood companion. Aside from accidentally bumbling into a different tealblood (see: Kerras), Emi hadn't done a very thorough search for her missing friend.

Now, with the constructions of the sites starting to wind down, Emiola found herself incredibly bored. She'd barely lifted a finger to help, and milling around was starting to grow stale. It was a good time to focus her energy on locating Masoal at least (wherever the heck he went). Seriously! She told him to stay close.

The only problem was that there was a myriad of construction sites and plenty of tiny nooks and crannies that she could easily see Masoal stowing himself away in. Where the heck was she supposed to start looking? She popped the lid off of a garbage can and peered in; not here, ewww....

(that was probably a good thing).

saedusk

 

[saedusk]

Even Masoal, the wild animal he was, had enough sense not to hide in a garbage can. It wasn't because of the smell or even because it was just an innately disgusting idea, but because he'd seen so many trolls open and close those cans all night long throwing things away. They'd see him for sure and the last thing Masoal wanted to do was interact with others.

This was all Emiola's fault. Normally when she dragged him out to these sorts of things she acted as a buffer between him and everyone else. Fossamom seemed to think it was good for him to interact with his own kind, but he had his doubts.

It's not like this was the first time they'd gotten separated from each other and he'd dealt with other trolls before, but...

Wait, was that? "Emiola!!" he shouted, running up behind her with a firm pap to her back as if to make sure she wasn't some sort of hell-induced illusion. "Where did you go?!"  

[Melancholies]

Emiola spun around, the garbage lid slamming down with such force that the resounding THUD echoed a little, sending her pigtails floofing backwards from the sudden woosh of wind. Her eyes were wide, but it wasn't like anyone could really tell. Despite Masoal's frantic crankiness, she only smiled.

"Dude!" She laughed her obnoxious laugh, the kind that was caught between a giggle and a chuckle and a full blown snort, "Where did you go! I was getting soooooo bored..." She sniffed, the laughter seeming to stifle, but her smile sure didn't, "Thought you were a goner!" Her hand papped the top of the garbage can lid, the thuds hallow and empty sounding.

"Glad you turned up though. I was worried I'd have to start super-duper looking!" And that sounded like a chore. Search and rescues were fun in games of hide and seek, but not like, actual rescues...

 

[saedusk]

That made Masoal squint, his eyes sharp and accusatory. "Why were you looking in there?" he asked, "I'm not in the garbage." Obviously.

"I was here the whole time." As if that cleared up any and all confusion about where he'd gone. "You always wander off! If you get attacked you'll die because you can't see." Everything he was saying made sense to him even if the likelihood of an attack on a child in the middle of a military complex was slim to none. There was always her lusus, too, who he was sure was lurking around somewhere. Fossamom was definitely in the background, after all.

"Stop doing that! Stop doing stupid things!"  

[Melancholies]

For a second, Emi's smile twitched. It wasn't that she felt a pang of some weird, new emotion, just that Masoal was the one being silly and stupid, not her. Oh well. She knew her forest friend was weird in a lot more ways than one.

Either way, Emi was entirely the nonconfrontational type, so she just put her hands up in a submissive gesture and laughed.

"You need to like, really chill out dude." Both her hands plopped down on either of Masoal's shoulders. "It's not a big deal!"

saedusk

hi ilu

 

[saedusk]

Masoal was a child, yes, but his sweeps of training were evident in how quickly he grabbed one of Emiola's wrists, yanking her hand from his shoulder at the same time he shrugged the other one off. He was looking straight at her, his lips curled up into a faint snarl.

"You don't understand at all!" Maybe he was paranoid, maybe he didn't have a good enough grasp on casual troll society, but either way Masoal feared she was far too passive for her own good. She didn't think enough, she wasn't strong enough. The fact he feared for her safety at all was still something he didn't have a handle on. The feral forest child never had friends before this.

This time he was the one to put a hand on her shoulder, shaking her roughly. "You don't think! It is a big deal!"

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Emi just sort of... let it happen. She flailed around like a rag doll as Masoal shook her violently, her head flopping around with enough force to give anyone watching whiplash. She seemed, for better or worse, content being thrashed around like that.

"I-I-I t-t-tot-t-tally t-t-think!" She finally made an attempt to keep Masoal from shaking her, if only so that she could sound less like a wub machine. "I totally think! I think about lots of stuff, like music, and eating, and sleeping." She was counting on her fingers, "And I think about you sometimes too! When I'm home and dad's bein' a total stick in the mud and I'd rather be climbing trees and doing somersaults and stuff."

She just wasn't home. And her lusus wasn't being a stick in the mud. So she hadn't thought about Masoal much.

"I think you're just makin' stuff up now. Did'ja run into some crazies when you were gone?"

saedusk

 

[saedusk]

Saying Masoal thought about other trolls all the time would be a blatant lie. Saying he thought about Emiola just as much as she thought about him was a tad closer to the truth, but since they'd been separated she was only one of two things he'd thought about the entire time. The other was getting the heck out of here, but he couldn't leave without her. Well, he could, but- Ugh.

It was frustrating. Was she even listening to what he was saying?

"Don't you ever worry about stuff?" he asked as he shoved her against the wall near the garbage can, almost desperate to get his point across when he wasn't even sure why he was trying so hard in the first place. Masoal often leapt first and asked questions later, but he had a basis in reality that he was beginning to think Emiola just didn't have.

"All that stuff is just fun stuff. It can't be always fun stuff!"

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

The laughing cut off abruptly as she was shoved back against the wall, Masoal's grip on her tighter than ever. For once the impact laid her bangs just so, and beneath them was one of her eyes between the thick messy strands of hair. It was wide and unblinking.

"W-Why would I?" The smile came back, but there was something off about it, almost nervous, "Why would I worry about stuff? There's nothin' to worry about!" Any time she'd gotten in trouble, she made it through unscathed. Any time things looked even the slightest bit dour, her overprotective lusus was there to nudge her out of harms way. "Don't they always say 'life's about what'cha make it'?" Why couldn't everything be fun? Everything had definitely been fun for her. Had been up until this point? "Things don't have to be serious all the time either!" It was rare for her to argue back. The uncertainty in her face showed it.

saedusk

 

[saedusk]

The argument didn't fall on deaf ears. In fact, Masoal was glad she was saying something, anything that wasn't there's nothing to worry about or haha let it go dude. Where he might've been entirely too confrontational, she was too passive. She went out of her way to do ignorant things, but didn't have the gumption to back it up, to defend herself if things got tough.

That's what Masoal thought, anyway. Eventually something would go wrong and she wouldn't be able to worm her way out of it by doing absolutely nothing.

"It's not always serious," he said, "but sometimes it's not fun, too! We're in a weird place and you don't even care. What will you do when you're alone with no lusus in a weird place? Can you take care of yourself? Can you? Do you even know what you're doing any of the time?"

Honestly, this may have been the most Masoal said to anyone at any given time.

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

At least that seemed to get Emiola to calm down. Her eyes were still wide, but she was starting to de-ruffle, her hair falling back into place slowly. "I mean..." Emi looked down at her shoes, then to Masoal's (which were still shoe less), "Nothing bad's ever happened before..." Which was true.

"I guess I just go with the flow, ya'know?" It was how she'd always done things, "I mean, I don't think Maccue's ever left me alone for that long..." But it was true, she guessed, that trolls had to become more self reliant as they got older. Maybe it was because she was a midblood, but she slid under the radar when it came to being bossed by highbloods, and she definitely wasn't expected to have the same responsibilities that highbloods had either. Being stuck in a weird limbo meant she got to do whatever she wanted, for the most part.

She was quiet for a second.

"Are you mad at me?" Emi asked in genuine earnest.

saedusk

 

[saedusk]

Yeah, Masoal was kinda mad, but it wasn't necessarily at Emiola, which was strange. The anger he felt, the annoyance, it was more at her attitude than her, though one might claim them the same thing. That wasn't how he saw it, though. For whatever reason, Masoal felt there was something more to her than that.

Finally he let go of her shoulders and stood back, crossed his arms.

"I'm mad," he said, "Kinda." Bringing up topics of serious discussion wasn't exactly the tealblood's strong suit. "Anything can happen. Just 'cause it hasn't doesn't mean it won't."

He moved next to her, leaning his back against the wall. "I don't want it to be too bad for you."

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Emi sniffed, "It sounds real lousy goin' through life trying to dance around what ifs though..." She was taking the moment to look down over her hands, and then after a moment she rubbed the spot on her shoulder where she'd been shoved into the wall. "I mean... I guess it makes sense to be careful, but like. If you treat everything that way, you're never going to have any fun! It's-- It's... I dunno."

She looked at the tealblood, "'Cause I mean, that's just the thing, right? You never know what's gonna happen..." Her back slid down against the wall until she plopped down on her butt, her legs smushed up against her chest. "It's not like I have to worry about all that grown up serious stuff cause I'm not one yet..."

Surprisingly stubborn, but at least she was talking.

saedusk

 

[saedusk]

It didn't take long for Masoal to join her on the floor, his legs crossed, his hands in his lap. There was a surprising calmness to the way his shoulders slumped as he sat forward slightly. The agitation leaked out, but he still huffed.

"You don't know, but you still have to be ready. I trained a lot because my lusus made me. It was good, though. I feel ready so I don't have to avoid things. If you don't get ready now, you won't be ready when you gotta be." How many trolls, he wondered, grew up with no concept of how to be prepared for the worst?

Melancholies