Subject: [anodyne] scars on hearts 310 views

[priya]

[atrb=border,0, true][atrb=height,350,true][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=cellpadding,10,true] Priya slipped into the Inn with Cutemon close on her heels. Only once the two were finally safe did the young woman let go of a breath she realized she had been holding onto for far too long. Funny how she could still do things like that. With a doubtful expression Priya looked down to her partner and forced a smile on her face. "We are still not very talented at the fighting thing I guess. Seems like it's a good time for a little pause from all that," She tried to sound light about it, but there was a little guilt lingering. For reasons she couldn't understand her mind was going somewhere she didn't want it to go. This was becoming a little more common lately and it really didn't seem to matter how hard she pushed against it, little traces were beginning to leak in and cause her great turmoil. Priya had to remind herself that this was just a game and even if they lost every single battle they ever got into she and Cutemon wouldn't be harmed terribly. There was no way they could have been horribly disfigured or handicapped. "Oi, Pri! Did you not hear me?" Cutemon grumbled and kept tugging on the girl's hand. He didn't really seem all that annoyed, but there was a hint of concern to him that made his partner realize she had conveyed something on her face as well as spacing out for a moment or two. "I know we just lost and all but that's not much of an excuse to get all... thinky." She couldn't help but laugh slightly at Cutemon. "You always know the most brilliant words. I'm sorry, I just got lost in something else for a moment. What did you say?" Priya grabbed the hand he was tugging with and strolled away from the entrance with him. "I was saying that we don't need to be good at the fighting thing, that's what you said last time! Gosh you'd think I need to take notes so I can read them back to you or something. Are you even listening right now? I swear if you space out on my again I'm calling tech support!!" The digimon whined and shuffled his feet childishly. It was painfully adorable how childish he could be sometimes and whereas some people would probably find him an annoying partner, Priya adored Cutemon. "I'm listening, I swear. Sometimes it's just fun to let you ramble though. You get pretty animated." Almost aghast, Cutemon responded, "I am animated though!" He really was an adorable partner.

[anodyne]

Shit, shit, shit!

"Make a break for it, Lo!" Kou shouted and waved his arms as the Digimon bolted through the forest. It was painfully obvious by now that the two weren't exactly ready for battles like this yet, so next time they were really going to have to chose their location a little more wisely. A lot more wisely. Infinitely more wisely. "Zig it! Zag it! I don't know just run!"

Lopmon responded by frantically running every which way, ears flopping behind it, as it shouted, "I don't even know what you're talking about!! What is zig it? What is zag it!? I'm gonna die here!!"

Enemy Digimon seemed everywhere in this place, and just when Kouki thought they were finally safe they stumbled into another foe. Things were starting to look pretty hopeless when the young man noticed a building not too far off- a building in the forest must have meant a safe haven. "You're gonna be fine, follow me!" In a jolt Kou motioned for Lopmon and took off in a full sprint towards the inn.

The two were shouting the entire time they ran, though none of it was anything even closely resembling a language of any kind. Even when they crashed straight through the door to the inn they were both looking at each other and holding out a shouting that sounded a bit like ahhhh but with an odd high and low tone jump. A few seconds passed and the two got progressively quieter until at last they were both silent. Kouki's eyes were wide and his mouth was drawn into a thin line.

"That was terrible!" The digimon shouted, hands thrown up before falling flat on it's face. Lopmon didn't move anything except it's ears which it beat the ground with like it was a drum. "Safe! Oh safe happy ground inside safe happy inn I will never take you for granted ever again!"

Kou was still a little on edge from his extremely unsuccessful attempt at playing the game, but he couldn't help laughing a little at his little friend. Then after chuckling a little he decided he might as well play along, so he threw himself to his knees and raised his hands high to the sk-- roof. "Praise be to thee, o mighty Forest Inn!" The straight face he somehow managed to keep during his peculiar praising ritual was impressive.

Well, impressive if you were a dork he guessed.

Then Kouki realized he and Lopmon weren't the only ones around and he got an embarrassed look on his face. A girl and a little rabbit type Digimon. Actually now that Kou considered it, Lopmon kind of looked like a rabbit too. Kind of. With an awkward chuckle the young man stood, faced the other player, and uttered, "Uh, sorry if we're bugging you. We're kind of terrible at this game so far so we're a little... wound tight I guess. Haha. I'm Anodyne!"

[priya]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=height,350,true][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=cellpadding,10,true] The amount of time Priya had to consider their next move was surprisingly short, as she found her thoughts abruptly interrupted by the arrival of a noisy new Tamer and Digimon. Ano...dyne? The avatar looked like it was around the same age as Priya's and from what she could tell from her short distance away his avatar also had crimson eyes. Even though it was just a little thing it gave her an odd kind of kinship towards the stranger- she realized rather quickly she wanted to talk to him. "I wonder what they're shouting about," Priya whispered to Cutemon. In response the Digimon got a skeptical expression on his face and looked up to his tamer. There wasn't any need for words when he could say so much with his eyes and that little rabbit frown. Things only seemed to get more peculiar as the newcomer's Digimon fell flat on it's face and started drumming on the ground with it's ears. Priya had never seen that specific 'breed' of Digimon before, but she instantly recognized it as just as quirky as her Cutemon was. From what she could tell the variety of Digimon personalities were as mixed as those you'd find in humans which seemed so unbelievable. Artificial intelligence had come so far... "They're certainly interesting at least, you gotta give them that," The young woman whispered again, this time not looking away from the man who had thrown himself to the floor dramatically. "I don't gotta give them anything. Why you gotta boss me around all the time?" Cutemon grumbled his response. Priya smirked a little and patted Cutemon on the head, whispering, "You know I don't do that you gruff pain in my butt." She was only distracted from her partner when the other Tamer stood and began to speak and... before she knew it she was smiling at him. For the first time since entering the game Priya felt entirely at ease with someone else, though she really couldn't place why. Nothing in what he said to her implied he was anything more than just a friendly guy, but here she was almost wordless for some odd reason. There was almost a sense of familiarity in the voice to the man behind Priya. "You're not a bother at all," The girl finally managed to sputter out. According to what she was told this Anodyne wasn't exactly good at the game either, so she could understand what he and his partner were going through. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Anodyne. I'm Priya. Cutemon and I know what it's like though- we kind of got a little battered on our way here."

[anodyne]

His embarrassed look quickly morphed into something a little more pleasant and natural when she addressed him. Kou found it a little odd how he felt almost instantly at ease even though he still had reason to feel embarrassed, but he couldn't seem to focus on that for long. "Well it's pretty good to know we're not the only ones! Nice to meet you too though, Priya."

Lopmon, noticing it's Tamer was now completely distracted, looked up skeptically and made a face. The Digimon seemed somewhat indifferent to the newcomers. It took a moment before pushing up from the floor and scuttling to Kou's side, grabbing at it's Tamer's hand. "Yeah hi," Lopmon mumbled softly.

It took a minute for Kouki to realize that Lo was holding on to his hand, and then it took a moment longer for the young man to realize Lopmon wasn't acting normal. The urge to ask what was wrong was there, but it was also possible asking in front of strangers would be off-putting for his partner. Kou wondered if that was an exclusively human trait briefly. Only then did it occur to the young man that there was a 'whisper' function for a reason.

"Is something the matter? Do you know these people?"

"No. I've just never met a Cutemon before."

There was only a light pause where Kouki looked to his Digimon incredulously, making it painfully apparent they were whispering at this point. It wasn't even worth whispering anymore, not that it was a conscious thought in Kou's mind to continue in the first place. "Are you... a girl?"

In response Lopmon grabbed it's ears and held them together over it's chest awkwardly. For a second it was almost like it was blushing when it said, "Digimon don't have genders stupid, don't embarrass me!"

Kouki chuckled lightly and turned his expression back to Priya. "Sorry about that. Me and Lo are getting to know each other still." He found it really amusing that Digimon apparently didn't have genders when he was near positive Lopmon had a tiny digi-crush on the Cutemon.

"How long have you been playing the game?"

[priya]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=height,350,true][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=cellpadding,10,true] He was so welcoming, she thought. Everything the young woman felt from him, saw in his expressions, made her feel at ease and like... she had someone she could speak to. It wasn't as though she couldn't converse with her partner Cutemon, but there was that occasional reminder that he was naught but data. Those were the times that she needed another person to rely on. Was it selfish to want such a thing? "Some people don't seem to play the game to be good at all, did you know that?" Priya felt a little silly poking at random conversation, yet something told her she would be quite alright in speaking to this person specifically. As the young woman continued Cutemon turned his attention to random things about the inn. "There are guilds all about role playing and socializing and anything else that isn't quite battling. Sometimes I think about joining things like that, but I'll probably not unless I see a guild about aiding other players all the time." Priya had a light smile on her face as she finished rambling, then just listened contentedly while Lopmon and Anodyne had a... peculiar little outburst. It was apparent that they had been whispering about something and though it may have offended certain others, Priya just found it a little amusing. Lopmon was right in saying that Digimon didn't have genders as far as the young woman knew, but quite a few did decide on a gender. If Priya had to assign a gender to Lopmon though it certainly would be female. A wry smile formed as she caught the way Lopmon looked at Cutemon. "Oh we haven't been playing long, honestly. Maybe..." Her voice trailed off and her brow furrowed a little. "A week, tops," Cutemon threw in.

[anodyne]

"Guilds, huh?"

The young man actually hadn't heard of many guilds yet, but there was so much in the Digital World he wasn't acquainted with. It didn't surprise him that she said there were ones out there about socializing, but he never quite thought about role-playing guilds. For some reason when he pictured it he just got this clear-cut image of someone pretending to be a Gabumon or something like that. It wasn't in him to contain the slight chuckle.

"If I ever joined a guild, I think I'd want it to be one that helped others as well actually... N-Not that I'm actually all that helpful, to be honest. I don't have a lot of practical game knowledge, and I don't think Lo knows any abilities that could help others out... do you?" Kouki looked over to the Digimon and raised his eyebrows in question.

"Afraid not!" Lopmon answered. It seemed to be looking for reasons to casually turn it's gaze this way or that. This fact did not escape Kou though.

"You ever think about making the kind of guild you'd want to be in though? Seems like something to do if you don't see any of the type you'd really enjoy. Maybe it's too early for that though? I mean you did say you've only been playing a week or so. Hah, wow sorry I'm rambling. I have a tendency to do that from time to time." Kouki smiled and shrugged a bit.