| Not One to Judge | ||
|---|---|---|
| Summary: Having been Robin's roommate for a few weeks now, Marion returns home to find Robin just hanging out as Strimla.  |
The door to the small apartment opens and in comes Marion, carrying a white gym bag and looking somewhat tired. "Uggh...people are idiots, I'm telling you Rob." She shuts the door behind her before noticing Robin's transformed state, blinking once before shrugging it off. She hadn't gotten the full details yet, but she'd been kinda busy and tired, and she wasn't the type to judge anyways. She set down said gym bag and flopped down at the kotatsu. Strimla looks up with a blink at being called 'Rob' as it's not a name she's used to being called even when she's a guy, then puts a bookmark in and sets the book to the side(it's Fellowship of the Ring). "Hey, Marion. So what crap happened at work today?" she asks. "Kitchen was kinda empty when I got off, so I wasn't able to pick up any surplus food today, sorry." Marion shrugs. "No worries. Anyways, some punk ass esper decided that it's be a good idea to try and rob the store, so I had to beat some ass, and then I got chewed out by my boss for taking matters into my own hands instead of calling the cops. Sure, we knocked a shelf over in the 15 second scuffle before he went down, but there wasn't that much damaged merchandise, and I'm certain we lost less than if I'd just given him what he wanted while waiting for the cops." She let out a massive sigh and flopped back. "I reiterate. People are idiots." Strimla chuckles before breaking out with an outright laugh. "I saw someone dumb enough to try to rob the place where I work. The owner came out and promptly shattered the guy's gun into shrapnel with a touch of her staff." She shakes her head with another laugh. "I tell you, she is one tough old lady." With a quick yawn, she stretches out her arms over her head with her fingers intertwined. "So what are you thinking of to do with the rest of the night, eh?" Marion can't help but stare just a little bit as Strimla stretches. She still wasn't used to seeing Robin as Strimla in a casual environment. She shakes it off and shrugs from her position on the floor. "I dunno, we could hit up the mall and window shop, or head out to eat." Strimla tilts her head as she notices the slight stare. "What?" She tilts her head with a shrug herself, then nods. "Yeah, sure, I could do either. Prefer not to skip a meal, but the mall does have a food court." She scoots out from the kotatsu, then glances around slightly before asking, "Uh, would you prefer I go out as a guy, like this, or do you not particularly care?" Marion sits up, shrugging and offering a grin. "Do whatever makes ya more comfortable. Sure, it may be odd insomuch as I haven't gotten used to it yet, but I'm not one to really judge or care." Strimla raises an eyebrow slightly. "'Judge'?" She sighs and shakes her head. "Marion, didn't you first meet me when I was Strimla just going home from work?" Still, she shrugs the concern away. "Look... when a goddess that everyone agrees is good and pure says I should embrace both forms, I'm gonna tend to take her advice, you know?" Marion nods at that. "Yeah, I'm just saying, it's one thing to swap forms because you become a kickass magical girl and fight crime in one, not many people would fault you for it. Less accepting folk i.e. assholes, however, would probably get all pissy or judgmental because you're actually looking at it like a part of you, and not just some fancy tool." She shrugs, glancing to the side. "Not certain if I'm making sense, but, tl;dr, keep on keeping on." Strimla blinks twice. "'TLDR?'?" Of course she's never heard the term before. "Um, anyway, I'll head out like this, then," she says, standing up again. "And if someone gets judgemental, I'll just laugh at them." She then frowns. "Buuuut... it is one of the reasons I'd prefer to be called Strimla when I'm like this, still. It'd still be a pain to deal with them." She glances upward, considering what she'd want to do tonight. "...Let's just head to the Usual tonight. I'm not really feeling looking at stuff I can't afford to buy..." Marion_Whicker Marion blinks and chuckles at the confusion. "Sorry, a bit of slang, it stands for 'too long, didn't read'" She stands and stretches a bit before readjusting her glasses and nodding at Strimla's request. "Yeah, I get ya. Didn't really see ya when I first walked in, so I kinda just defaulted to Rob, sorry about that." She picks up her gym bag and rifles through it a bit before pulling out a dull red wallet, slipping it into her pocket alongside her phone. Strimla shrugs as she slips a few bills into a pocket on the inside lining of her boot. "All right, let's go! I'm getting hungry..." Strimla ammends as she walks to the door, "And don't worry about it. It's just us in here. I'm not letting people into the apartment I don't trust, ya know?" Marion nods, smiling. "Well, what are we waiting for then? I'm starved." The Usual Restaurant Strimla strolls on in. "...And them Jim promptly got a nosebleed and ran!" She laughs, having recounted the story of one of her earlier adventuring companions, a half-orc warrior who seemed to have a problem with pretty girls... a real problem considering not only Strimla was in the group, but another attractive woman by the name of Asuna as well. Marion lets out a laugh at that. "Nice." She glances around, trying to decide on a table, noting the relative emptiness of the restaurant. "Huh, guess it's a slow day today." She shrugs. Strimla nods and simply makes her way to a table near the bar. "It happens... Trust me, the workers here are thankful for it, even if management isn't." She plops into the seat and yawns lightly. "I am surprised, though... I guess it's still odd to me that your boss thinks you should just... let people rob you and run..." Marion sits down across from Strimla, shrugging. "The guy's a nut, to be frank. He adamantly refuses to acknowledge any magic, or advanced technology, or, really any of the bizarre crap that makes Neo Tokyo what it is. It's kinda funny at times, but it's mainly either sad, or a pain in the ass. Sad in that he can't accept how drastically his life has changed, a pain for reasons that I've already elaborated on." She unzips and shrugs off her hoodie. Strimla props her elbows on the table and interlocks her fingers, resting her chin on those. "Then he's gonna have a hard life. I could not accept electricity, but that would have made life here way more difficult than it has to be. I /like/ electricity and phones and stuff. They're nice. I can't wait to try my kotatsu when the weather actually gets cold, you know?" She sighs, closing her eyes and shakign her head slightly. Soon, the waitress arrives! Strimla orders a simple cheeseburger with fries, content with water to drink. Marion nods before ordering a sub and soda. "Yeah, working his old register's kinda a pain. The keys get stuck from time to time, and if the gears lock up you're screwed, but he refuses to replace it." She shrugs. "At least my coworkers are cool." Strimla blinks at that. "Keys getting stuck? Gears? Sounds like he's using something you might have seen in my world... Just when did he come from, anyway?" She then raises an eyebrow before smirking slightly. "Oh? Just how cool are your coworkers, then?" Marion shrugs at the first question. "Heck if I know, he just kinda ignores us when we ask." She then grins at the followup question. "Well, they're willing to put up with our boss's shenanigans, so that's cool enough on it's own, but they've bailed me out once or twice with working his dinosaur of a register, and they're pretty nice people." Strimla nods a few times, then graciously takes her drink as it arrives. "I wish I could say the same for my coworkers... they're mostly... honestly kinda insane. I think I'm the only one working there that's not from their village... They're all chinese, some of them don't have a firm grasp on the language..." She then grimaces. "And then there's Pomade, who's always trying to get me to fight her." Marion sips on her own drink, arching a brow before responding. "Well, they sound like a lively bunch. Is there any reason you don't just give her what she wants? You'd probably mop the floor with her if she's mundane." Strimla sighs and shakes her head. "They don't know about, well, this. So I'd be fighting her without all this... I do /not/ know unarmed combat nearly as well as she does, I can already tell that. And my mace is really a specialized weapon for fighting ghosts... it's just a hunk of metal if I'm fighting anything else." She then bits her lip. "Also there's that bit of... manicness about her that kinda fightens me, honestly." Marion glances to the side. "Oh, yeah." She sips her drink again while furrowing her brow somewhat. "Hmm, have you ever tried tapping into your magic while not, well, you know?" She glances around, thankful that the restaurant was empty, for the most part. "I mean, sure, I'd still get my ass kicked by any real threats, but I actually can use some of my combat skills while in my normal state." She lets out a nervous chuckle. "Of course, I can barely lift my mace, and I have no clue how to actually fight without my other form's muscle memory backing me up, and my magic has all the stopping power of wet tissue paper..." Strimla nods. "Of course I have. Back when I first started doing this, it was about the first thing I did." She shakes her head. "It doesn't work. If I want any of the powers, I have to be in this form. I don't need the outfit, though... I could still summon Gnistra or my wings right now, or cast my other spells... but I'll take hits a lot worse without the outfit." She nods slightly, listening to Marion's explanation. "I know what you mean... I've tried picking up a greatsword or a longbow, and I just don't seem to get it if it's not Gnistra. Buuut... I can still manage okay with swinging that mace if I need to." Marion lightly sighs. "I should probably start working out and training outside of my Ranger form. It's really frustrating that the transformation feels like I just swap outfits, and yet the difference between them in performance is like night and day." Strimla smirks and shakes his head. "It's kinda the opposite with me... I don't actually get any stronger. It's just that Gnistra is a really, really potent weapon. And ho boy do I have a change happen." She snickers at that, then widens her eyes in hunger as the food arrives! "Oooh! Food's here!" She is quite happy to dig in. Marion snickers at Strimla's joke before tucking into her own food. In between bites, she poses a question. "What exactly is Gnistra anyways? My mace and buckler are kinda generic, and are supposed to be some kinda extension of my will or some other magicky technical stuff, but you talk about that sword like it's just something you happen to have access to." Strimla reaches behind her back and... pulls out the greatsword. This being the Usual Restaurant, the fact that she's holding it more as an object than a readied weapon means everyone is more or less ignoring it. "Gnistra is as much a part of my transformation as the outlet. More, I'd say, honestly... It was Gnistra I found in that cave, with an amulet hanging from the crossguard." She shrugs again. "It bonded to me from that point on. I wish I knew the details... where it came from and all that, but... well, I don't, unfortunately." | |
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