108 » told you seventeen times before seven am

[crunchy]

[The only thing that's consistent is this: Grace never seems to come out when Gwynne is around.

Otherwise, when she makes her appearances, it's almost impossible to tell at first glance whether she's an Otherworld demon in disguise, or herself. Sometimes she is herself. Sometimes she really is the woman that Isaac knew, and not just a demon wearing her face, to be scared off and shot at and pelted away from the house. Which implies odd things about how she's being held by them, but she never answers any of Isaac's questions about how she's being treated or what she does when she's not with him.

Anyway, he's an observant type, being a handy-dandy engineer and all. He's probably noticed by now that Grace has started doing something that the demons using her body never bother with. Whenever she appears in his home — never too far from where her stomach is being held — she shows up in the kitchen, and she's always cutting vegetables, such that the sound of her knife against the cutting board punctuates all of her quiet little remarks. Have you eaten, Isaac? How is Gwynne? What about darling Cassius?

I see. That's good. All is well, then. That's good.

Otherworlders, they wouldn't know how to cook. They wouldn't even know how to fake it if they tried.

The vegetables disappear whenever she does, unfortunately, so he does still have to make his own meals — and anyway, would he really still eat her cooking after everything that's happened? — but even so, Grace doesn't seem especially bitter about it. She only ever smiles, in her cryptic way. Maybe the time she spends with him is all she has left. Maybe, after these ridiculous, comically depressing moments of solace, she goes back to the Crimson Horizon, to be tortured and interrogated.

But if that's the case, she doesn't show any signs of distress when he rounds a corner in his home and finds her in his kitchen again, cutting up a pile of carrots that never seems to lessen no matter how long she works.]

Welcome home, Isaac. Find anything nice in the junkyard?

Comments

[legenia]

[As always, Grace's greeting is met with a startled gasp from Isaac, this one punctuated by the junk he was planning to set on the kitchen table to tinker with clattering to the floor. No matter how many times this has happened, it still hasn't gotten any easier. The silver lining, if it can even be considered remotely close to one, is that Grace is preparing dinner. That means it has to actually be her this time.]

Ah... H-Hey, Grace. [That doesn't stop his reply from being as awkward as it always is. He's essentially seeing a ghost, after all. Having a conversation like nothing is wrong makes it all the stranger, but he eases into it nevertheless.] I did, actually...

[He bends down to pick up the parts he'd dropped. Thankfully, they didn't get busted up from the short fall. He brings them over to the table for Grace to get a look at.]

I think these guys have some potential to turn into something new and exciting. Definitely not the quality I'd gotten used to from Central Axis' supply drops, but... [He shrugs.] I'll make 'em work.

[Besides, as good as moon tech is, it's such a relief to be back to basics.

...He can only keep up the facade of casual conversation for so long, though. What hasn't changed is that Grace isn't really here. That's the Grace he knows, but she'll be gone at a moment's notice, taking whatever potentially dubious meal she's preparing for him with her.]

Are you just checking up on me again, then...?

[He wants to ask her how she's doing, but even he knows that's an unbelievably stupid question. She probably wouldn't even give a straight answer, anyway...]

[crunchy]

[Grace laughs when Isaac drops his scavenged parts; the barest edge of cruelty lines her girlish little tee-hee. It would be generous to call her anything like kind or caring, what with the gleeful way she always reacts to his misfortune — but she doesn't deny that she's come to see him, and she peers carefully at the parts he's brought back with an appraising yet faintly condescending air, like that of an older sister humoring a small child, evaluating nothing more important than a set of seashells he picked up from the shore.]

It's not as though I have anyone else to check up on. Gwynne, she's at that age where she'd ask too many questions... and your friends from the Society would probably shoot me on sight, no?

[Not that she'd deny that she deserves it. Not that she hasn't done plenty to deserve it. She's attacked them often enough, too. But it's hardly worth mentioning now.]

The circuits look like they're in good working order. I'm sure you'll make something worthwhile out of them. You always manage to make yourself so useful, Isaac.