02 - Pull Yourself Together

[birdinthehand]

A - Venture Park, closed to Eiji Hino

This city was one strange, dangerous place. If it wasn't one thing keeping him from finding that blasted hobo, it was another. (Mostly, he was choosing to blame that weird purple Greeed for making messes and getting in his way.) But today he was determined to find Eiji Hino. He had reached the limits of how far he could grow while nesting at Joji Yuki's lab, or while huddled shamefully at the bottom of Hina Izumi's purse.

Mind you, Ankh has absolutely no patience left. There is no room for subtlety and stealth in his plans today. "EIJI! HEY! EIJI!!!" So there is now a very noisy floating hand rushing through Venture Park at inappropriate speeds. One that cares not for who he bothers or how much attention he's drawing.

B - Venture City in general

When you're more than just a floating hand, there are more things that you can do. Like actually go into an ice cream shop, purchase multiple ice cream bars (with money that was gotten via earlier pickpocketing, but let's not go there), and sit down to eat them all. Even if they don't taste like anything. Even if they don't feel like anything. They're supposed to taste sweet and feel cold, and maybe if he eats enough of them, he'll get something out of it.

But so far, it's just serving to tick him off, for obvious reasons and for reasons that feel just a few inches outside of his grasp. He looks very, very grumpy, for a man with that much ice cream stacked in front of him.

Comments

[hinavelous]

Somehow Hina was unfased by the robo-arm. Maybe because Ankh here had spent so much time with a monster bird arm attached to him, and she'd met him primarily via just that arm. Weird arms didn't really bother her that much anymore.

She huffs. Don't question the candy from your body's maker if he tells you to eat it, sir. She then frowns some when Joji mentioned the senses, looking back at Ankh and his ice cream. Was he still eating them, even if he couldn't taste them...? She gestures to the candy and smiles at him, then.

"See? Then you can taste things, like when you had my brother's body." The lightheartedness with which that statement was given was probably a little bizarre.

[birdinthehand]

Being told that it would keep him from melting into a puddle was somewhat motivational... but being told that this thing could improve his senses sold him on it. His eyes dart between the two, and then he stuffs the purple thing into his mouth and tries not to look too eager about the whole thing. And since this is a matter of taste, what would this thing taste like? Like purple? (Purple is totally a flavor. There are many things that taste purple.)

[forgottendecade]

It starts out a muted icy purple, that kind that suggests the ghost of purples in the past that had somehow stayed around long enough to hint at what was to come. Then there was a ziggy purple, the kind that was a bit too ripe, but still melt in the mouth purply, which faded into the kind of purple that everyone sometimes feels the urge to taste; the purple that hit the back of the throat and coated a line all the way down to the stomach. It doesn't last, but the taste still lingered like an afterthought of purples waiting to bubble up again.

[hinavelous]

Hina perched on the edge of the bench Ankh was seated on, and thus commenced a period of watching a bird eat candy and gauging his reaction. Mostly, she wanted to see the look on his face if this candy did, as Joji suggested, return him a sense of taste.

A moment later she was standing again and trying to figure out where he'd gotten all his ice cream from. What he had was melted, and surely he'd want more of it if he could taste it.

[birdinthehand]

That was a whole lot of purple happening. And the fact that it was happening at all was absolutely amazing. He could feel it, could taste it... and everything else suddenly felt sharper. Not as much as his senses would have been if he'd been attached to a living human, but far better than a mere Greeed's capacity to perceive the world. His eyes went wide, he inhaled deeply, turned his eyes skywards, then swallowed what was left of the rapidly dissolving candy.

The next moment, he looks down to the table and grabs for the last ice cream bar that had been set out there, but it's all melted in its plastic packaging. Well. That won't do. Without another word to either of them, Ankh is rising from the bench and setting off towards the little corner grocery across the street. That's where he'd bought the others, and that's where he's going to get himself more.

[forgottendecade]

It looked like it did work, though Joji still wasn't that satisfied with it. Maybe if he had a lot more time, he would have been able to build more and get it closer to what he should have. But still, it was probably an improvement, especially since Ankh stood up and headed back to the store.

"I think a couple more treatments and he will have his full senses back," he muttered to no one in particular. Out came the stylist and his holoscreen, notes sketch across the flickering diagrams. "That is if he wants more."

[hinavelous]

There was a lot to say about watching someone like Ankh enjoy something. Hina never really figured she'd be standing near him, watching him appreciate the flavor of something, and catching herself smiling fondly at him for it. And yet, here she was.

When he got up she started, glancing between Ankh as he stalked off and Joji. She smiled at Joji's muttering, bowing forward again toward him.

"I think he'd like that, even if he won't ever say as much," she offered, glancing back toward Ankh as he retreated. "I'm-- gonna go make sure he actually pays for his ice cream," she added, and then scurried off after the bird homunculus.