Busy Streets (CyclicalCycal)

Bunbun · December 12, 2016, 03:50:22 PM

Juliana stared down at the child quizzically. Not only did she not have a mother, she apparently had no memory of ever having one. Either something had happened to her very early in Cara's lifetime, or... well, she wasn't exactly sure what the alternative was, but so far the kid had been a great big bundle of surprises. If there was anyone who was capable of changing the way Juliana thought about the world, it would be Cara.

Unsure how to proceed with the conversation after receiving such an odd answer, Juliana took to scratching the back of her head in thoughtfulness. Eventually, she settled on transitioning to something more immediately relevant.

"I don't get it, then. How on earth do you survive out there on your own, with nobody to take care of you?"

CyclicalCycal · December 12, 2016, 04:06:35 PM

"The forest helps me..." She explained, as if the forest was a single, uniform entity. "And I can call on father if I need it, he said. But he told me if I did it could hurt him really bad, so I don't." Cara peered around the area, going to rub at her empty socket. "I need to make another eye..." She mumbled.

"Oh, and not just the forest!" She exclaimed, swapping back to the earlier question. "But the animals are nice, and help me too! And I can grow all the food I need! I only have to come to the stupid city for things like..." She flailed the doll in the air, making a point. "...and clothes...and stuff. But this coat's good, and it's been good for a while." She commented, hugging the far-too-big coat.

Bunbun · December 13, 2016, 02:02:26 PM

While Juliana was none too pleased to be referred to as a member of the 'stupid city', she had other issues that she'd much rather focus on. Notably, the child's claim that she was helped out by not only animals, but the forest itself. It sounded like something that came straight out of a children's storybook, not to be taken seriously in the slightest. Yet here she was, having to force herself to consider it as a possibility. How else would Cara have survived for so long without a caretaker?

...This whole situation was incredibly silly.

"You said you needed that thing as a vessel, right?" she asked, gazing at the doll that Cara was shaking around haphazardly.

"...But what for? I'd say that your magic works pretty damn well on its own."

CyclicalCycal · December 13, 2016, 02:44:44 PM

"I wanna make it alive! I can make them alive!" Cara said, grinning. "Father makes alive-ones he calls golems and they're made of wood and screams!" She seemed rather upbeat for something that was made out of an expression of terror or agony. "So I wanna make one out of wood and magic! He said I could, a long time ago, but I never got the stuff to try until now!"

Cara was, indeed, the living embodiment of a fairy tale. Not only did she represent one touched by the forest, guarded by it (a story that one would find in a child's book) , but she also had the underlying horror of one, as well.

"You've got magic too, right Juliana? That's what you did to my nose, isn't it?"

Bunbun · December 13, 2016, 07:21:57 PM

As soon as Cara started to answer the question, Juliana immediately began to regret asking it. She was half tempted to ask what exactly constituted as being 'made of screams', but she wasn't about to press the matter further with so many people around. The child's empty eye socket was disturbing enough on its own without her spouting off horror stories with a wild grin across her face. Hopefully, the screams were a metaphor for something, but she wasn't going to get her hopes up.

"Yeah, it's life magic. Pretty powerful, but I can't say that I use it for free very often."

She hesitated for a moment, a tad concerned about what the answer to her next question would be.

"...Why do you ask?"

CyclicalCycal · December 13, 2016, 08:00:17 PM

"...you sell your magic?" Cara asks, tilting her head. It seemed the very concept of selling magic was foreign to Cara, but then again, money was also foreign to her. "W-why would you do that? My father and his friends always used to kill the evil stuff and push away the blights for free! Why don't you heal people for free? ...you healed me for free."

Bunbun · December 13, 2016, 08:33:14 PM

"That's just the way it works in the city. If you're not getting paid to do what you're good at, then you don't have any money. If you don't have any money, then you can't afford to buy food. And if you can't afford to buy food... then you starve. Not everybody can just... make food appear when they need it, and you can't really trust other people to provide for you."

Her words carried a sense of finality to them, a product of having to repeat the same kind of thing to god-knows-how-many people over the years.

"Besides... If I healed every person I've met who needed it, the strain from using the magic would've killed me a long time ago. Everything comes at a price, and the price for using magic is your own energy."

She didn't provide a reason as to why she would heal Cara, but not other people. Perhaps that was because she couldn't think of a good reason.

CyclicalCycal · December 13, 2016, 08:49:45 PM

"But your energy returns, doesn't it? Mine does. So...so why don't you just heal people when you can? That's the nice thing to do!" Cara didn't understand basic economics, really. She couldn't comprehend that Juliana's job was casting spells, nor that she couldn't just invoke all the fresh fruit and vegetables she required from nothing more than a shard of wood. "Your city sounds stupid. It's better in the forest."

Cara peered around, instantly going to change conversation topic. "W-when will we reach the forest?" She asked, slightly nervously.

Bunbun · December 14, 2016, 03:14:26 PM

"It might be the nice thing to do, yes, but you can't always afford to do the 'nice' thing without taking a significant toll on yourself. You need to understand that I literally can't survive by healing everyone for free... that being said, I guess it doesn't hurt to help someone out for free every now and then. Having more opportunities to practice can hardly be a bad thing."

To Juliana's relief, Cara decided to abruptly switch topics. Of course, it wasn't her fault that she couldn't wrap her head how things worked in the city- she'd spent nearly her entire life in the forest after all. That didn't really change the fact that explaining the same thing for the millionth time got tiring after a while.

"...Don't worry, it won't be too long now. We're almost there."

CyclicalCycal · December 14, 2016, 04:00:23 PM

"O-okay! Th-that's good! Thank you for taking me back. It's nice." She commented. Cara paused, though, mulling over Juliana's words before nodding. "Practice helps! When I was four, I could only manipulate a few trees at a time, but now I can do a lot!" She said, with a grin. "W-when did you first learn your magic, Juliana?" She asked, legitimately curious.

Bunbun · December 16, 2016, 03:38:48 PM

"...You don't have to thank me so much, y'know. You've already said it more than enough times."

Juliana wasn't entirely sure why, but hearing those two simple words so many times over the course of a few hours made her a little uncomfortable. Maybe it just wasn't something that she was used to hearing.

"Hmm... well, I've known about my magic for as long as I can remember, but I didn't start developing it much until I was around your age. Never received any specific training on how to use it properly, though. Pretty much everything I know about it was self-taught."

CyclicalCycal · December 16, 2016, 03:51:47 PM

"Well, I've been casting ever since I can remember! Father helped teach me how to use it properly and not kill things by accident." She explained, as if this was the normal development of a child. Well, it wasn't as if Cara had acted normally for any of the time Juliana had spent with her. It was not in her nature to act normally, surely Juliana would've realised this by now.

She paused, for a long while. Then, she asked another question. "...why do so many people live in the city? It's stupid. They should live in the forests!"

Cara had no idea about the usefulness of large cities, and the longer she was with someone who was from one, the more evident it became.

Bunbun · December 17, 2016, 03:32:12 PM

By this point, Juliana barely even raised an eyebrow whenever Cara said something disturbing. She honestly couldn't tell how much of what she was hearing was actually the truth, but she could tell that there wasn't going to be any end to it. Cara obviously wasn't going to act like any other children she'd met, so trying to get her to do so was a waste of energy.

"It might not seem like it to you, but there are benefits to living in the city. For one thing, you don't have to learn to do everything by yourself; you only have to do what you're good at. You do your job to earn money, and you pay other people to do their jobs and get what you need. There's that, and there's also the fact that it's not really safe in the wilderness. Most people can't... cooperate with wild animals. Besides, if everyone moved to the forest, they'd just end up building another city. I'm guessing you wouldn't want that."

CyclicalCycal · December 17, 2016, 03:59:08 PM

Cara blinked, processing this.

Then, she nodded. "I...I guess...maybe they should learn to talk with the animals. They're fun to talk to!" Cara responded. She then paused, before going to say. "Except ants. Ants are creepy..." She didn't see a need to elaborate on that, thankfully going to move on to a more sane, reasonable, and non-magical topic of conversation.

"J-Juliana...?" She asked, slightly tentatively, after a pause. "...I might have to return to places...like this...do you know if there's a way for me to...make...money?" She spoke the word as if it tasted bitter, or spiteful. It was alien to her tongue, she didn't fully grasp it or the implications behind it.

Bunbun · December 17, 2016, 07:52:36 PM

Juliana chuckled a little at Cara's moment about talking to animals. The image of people going up to animals and trying to have a meaningful conversation with them was, absurd as it was, actually pretty amusing.

"Heh. Yes, I'm sure they'd make brilliant conversation partners. But, you know, something tells me that they wouldn't have much to say to, er, 'city people'."

When it came to the subject of earning money, Juliana couldn't think of too many ways a child could do so. Children were, of course, usually provided for by their parents, so there weren't many situations where a kid needed to make money. There was one way she knew of, but she also knew that Cara would be none too happy about it.

"Well, you might not like the sound of this, but... you could always do what I do and use your magic to make money. I'm not sure what all of your magical abilities are, but people would definitely be willing to pay a lot for the kind of fruit you conjured up earlier. There was a lot of stuff in there that we rarely get to see here in the city, and certainly not as fresh as you made it."

CyclicalCycal · December 17, 2016, 08:04:05 PM

Cara frowned, as if the idea was distasteful. Not an anathema to her, but just distasteful.

"I-I okay." Her thoughts then drifted away, to other things. She glanced at the other passers-by, still clutching her coat as to prevent being tripped up by them. As she wandered, she found that her fear and her hate for the city had dulled due to Juliana. It was something that she likely wouldn't think of, for now, but would be immensely helpful in times to come.

Cara then decided to ask a question that made her quite weary. Juliana could hear it, this question caused her pain. There was something lurking behind it.

"...M-Miss Juliana...can you help...me?"

Bunbun · December 17, 2016, 10:54:38 PM

The new question posed to Juliana, while being incredibly vague, seemed to have a good amount of weight behind it. It sounded like there was something that Cara was reluctant to say, something that she was deliberately trying to avoid bringing up. It had an aura of uneasiness about it, which made the woman hesitant to respond. There was hardly a better option, though; leaving the question unanswered would just make everyone involved even more uncomfortable.

"...What? Can I help you... with what?"

Despite her unfamiliarity with doing so, she did her best to sound reassuring. It was a drastic change from the stern rigidity that she had displayed earlier that day.

CyclicalCycal · December 17, 2016, 11:27:27 PM

"...my father is sleeping. I-I need to wake him up. Can you help me?" It was clear, the way she refused to meet Juliana's gaze, the way she was twitching during the question, that it wouldn't be as simple as shaking him awake, or throwing a bucket of water on him. It would require something greater.

Cara knew this, in fact, and it really influenced her next statements. "Y-you don't...h-have to. B-but I'd like it if you did. Please?" She seemed to be preparing to be turned down, glancing up at Juliana with wide eyes.

Bunbun · December 18, 2016, 11:54:48 AM

Obviously, whatever ailment had befallen the girl's father wasn't something that could be cured easily. If that was the case, then he would presumably have awoken a long time ago- from what what Juliana could tell through her observations and Cara's statements, it would seem that he had been asleep for months, possibly even years. If Juliana was going to offer her assistance in this matter, she was at least going to need more details than what she had right now.

"That," she began, "would depend on what it would take to wake him up. I hardly know anything about your father, other than the fact that he's been asleep for a while."

Her pace slowed down a little as she looked down at Cara. She wasn't expecting the girl to be very forthcoming with information, so any clues she could get from signs of emotion could prove beneficial.

CyclicalCycal · December 18, 2016, 12:45:20 PM

"...I d-dunno how to get him to wake up." Cara mumbled, wearily, going to fix her gaze onto the ground. A great misery overtook her, this was not a good subject for her. It made her weak. Empty. Frail. Well, frailer than normal, at least.

"Well...he's been sleeping at home...and he's been sleeping for ages...and I left because he wasn't going to wake up...and I needed to...but...but I don't think he's going to wake up. He just lies there...doing nothing. At all." She explained, describing a corpse.

Cara glanced around again, apparently growing afraid, or nervous, at the topic conversation. As if something was going to appear and attack her, or if she was going to be accused of something heinous. She had an indefatigable feeling of guilt.