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If anyone can say at least one good thing about Rhodes Island, is that the resting rooms are rather good, and anyone can feel welcome to sit back and relax after a hard day’s work.
Except for Mousse.
That’s because all she wanted was a nice and relaxing afternoon of watching her favorite cartoon after a day of training and physical therapy and instead all she got was seating right next to a hulking mass of destruction known as Mudrock…
So, long for relaxation…
“I’m sorry, but what is this that you are watching?” The Sarkaz asks. Mousse on her turn gets quite scared, not expecting the hulking mountain in armor to actually talk to her. Also, she was focused on her tablet.
So, she stutters. “Hmm. I-I’m watching…” She looks at the tablet then at Mudrock. “It’s a cartoon… Adventures to the Deep…” If she could see it, she would see Mudrock nodding.
“That so?” Mudrock starts to pounder and think, then she asks Mousse once again. “And what is a carton exactly? Why watch it?” Now, don’t take me wrong, Mousse is a nice girl and all, really hardworking too. But she’s a tad shy, especially when dealing with a two meters tall Sarkaz that’s usually wearing full combat armor. To be fair, who wouldn’t be nervous now?
Still, she tries to calm herself down. She has seen Mudrock around and has fought with her in a couple of missions, she’s nice if a tad quiet. And most important of all, she’s a companion! A member of Rhodes Island, nothing to worry about! Or so she thinks… “It’s a show… Usually for kids. But cartoons are for everyone really! Not just kids…” This is hard, Mousse never had to explain what a cartoon is before. It’s just one of those things that exist, y’know? “And, well. I watch them cause they are fun and… well…” She says something that is hard to hear.
“My diminutive friend, what was that last part?” Mudrock asks.
Mousse blushes a little. She hasn’t come to terms with it herself. Yet. “Some cartoons are, you know… Gay.” Mudrock nods. And that’s enough to make Mousse at least a little less worried about the Sarkaz, so, she gets closer to her and offers her tablet. “Want to watch it with me?”
What comes next is about an hour of the both of them watching cartoons. A duo of kids deciding to explore a dangerous and rather magnificent place called the Deep, and their adventures as they travel it. Still, soon enough, Mousse has to go, however, she tells Mudrock about the app she uses to watch cartoons. Surprisingly it’s the same that Folinic and many others she knows used to watch movies and other shows. Now that’s convenient. And with that, the Sarkaz and the little Feline go their separate ways.
Time passes, a week maybe two, and Mudrock finds herself once again with free time. Which is becoming a normal occurrence, Rhodes makes sure that its operators don’t overwork themselves. Yet, this is a day where she doesn’t have the energy to train anymore and she isn’t really feeling it with her sculptures. Then, what to do but clean her room a little?
Well, hers and Folinic’s. It’s pretty much a shared room with how much time the doctor spends time in it. There’s even a drawer with her clothes and other everyday objects she needs. Mudrock quite likes the situation.
And speaking of everyday objects… There is a tablet. One that Folinic rather rarely uses in fact, the woman is always working when not too tired physically and mentally to do much else than sleep. So, the tablet rarely sees use. And Folinic did say that Mudrock could use it.
Which she does.
The Sarkaz then decides to relax. She takes off her armor, revealing scar after scar. Burns, first, second, third degree. Scars from arrows, being shot with Sankta’s guns, from explosions and shrapnel, from acid, from arts. From swords, lances, and axes. And her own oripathy lesions. Still, she gets dressed in a rather comfortable hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, she picks the tablet and sits down on her bed with the back to the wall.
Surprisingly, the table not only has the app that Mousse showed her but also, it seems that there’s both a profile for Folinic and one for herself.
Did the doctor do this? She can’t be sure, still, the thought is enough to make her smile.
Alright. What to do now? There are lists of shows after shows. Movie after movie. She didn’t recognize any of them. To be honest. Besides books that she could find during her adventures, Mudrock was very media illiterate, the first movie she ever saw was with Folinic and her family, a rather fun adventure about pirates and a cursed treasure. Still, what to do?
Nothing besides go to the search bar and type the name of the cartoon she and Mousse watched that one day.
Things take an intreating turn after it.
It turns out that, Mudrock likes it. For some reason, she doesn’t know why, she just does. So, she decides to enjoy this and not think about a why, she’ll just go along with it.
And that becomes a thing she does from time to time. Watch cartoons, the one that Mousse showed her, others recommended by the app. Eventually, this becomes something she talks about with others, well, not everyone, just some people. Rostmontis, Red, Mousse. They have similar tastes sometimes, some others they don’t. She likes the recommendations most of the time.
Then, one day, on one of the rare days where doctor Kal’tsit is able to force Folinic to stop working and get some rest, they are together in Mudrock’s room.
And like on the rare days where Folinic is forced to rest, they both are spent, tired, and satisfied while trying to get their breaths back while resting in Mudrock’s bed. And as it’s custom, Folinic is the one to start cuddling. None of them ever commented on it, but, they like this. They like being this close to one another. Maybe it’s love. Yet, there’s something special in it for Mudrock. It’s rare for her to bare herself for someone, especially removing her mask, yet it feels so easy to do this with Folinic… “Want to stay like this?” She asks the doctor.
“I think it would be best to clean ourselves up, then… put on some clothes.” Which they do. And as Folinic – Who’s back on her work clothes. — is taking her time watching Mudrock dress, she hears a small ping coming from the nightstand.
It was the tablet, some sort of notification? Weird, she thinks, she barely uses the thing. She picks it up and takes a look.
Well, this is… surprising.
With her partner done dressing on her usual hoodie and sweatpants, she asks. “No offense but… Could you explain this?” She shows the tablet to Mudrock and the message that new episodes of Adventures to the Deep and The Darkest Journey are available… Oh, right… The app does that.
Mudrock sits on the bed, right next to Folinic. “It’s… A rather strange reason.” She says Folinic stays quiet. “Growing up in Kazdel, I just fought. For survival, for food, for the next day. It was always like this. It was normal.” She sighs. “Normal, like eating, sleeping. It was a part of life. Existing, surviving.” Then she looks at Folinic. “When I became a mercenary, it was the same. So, it was when I joined Reunion, but in there, there was an illusion of an objective. A dream. It was just a dream there.” And that feels hard to say… “Then when I left with my squad, it was just survival.” Folinic lands a hand on top of Mudrock’s own hand. “Still, when I got to Wolumonde, I learned things. I learned that kids play, they are told stories, they are comforted by their parents. It… I don’t know what I felt at that time.” She pauses for a second. “That feeling returned once I arrived at Rhodes. There are many kids in Rhodes. Some, young operators, I see myself a lot in them. Training and fighting to survive another day. I’m ashamed to admit this but… I’m rather fond of them.”
Folinic smiles. “Is that why you usually train some of the younger operators?” Mudrock nods.
“I. I… hate the sight of a dead child. Since I was one myself, that was something that I just couldn’t get used to.” The tone in the Sarkaz’s voice is sad, full of fear and regrets. “It hurts me at my core, as a person.” Folinic holds her hand tight, a way of saying that it’s okay. “Still. Most kids at Rhodes are… different.” She pauses, then goes back at it. “Yet, they aren’t. That’s when I noticed that me, those young operators, and many of the other ones here, are the ones that are different. We are the exception.” She looks down. “Those kids, they, even if orphans. They are taken care of. They are held when in pain or in fear, they are allowed to not be concerned about their own survival. At least in here.” She takes a deep breath, somehow, this became hard to talk about. “And maybe, me wanting and liking these cartoons has to do with that. Maybe, I just feel… A sense of innocence in them. A feeling of how things could’ve gone.” There’s just so much she wants to talk about. So many things she wants. She wants someone to hold her. “Or mayhaps I just like a simple story where the heroes learn something, and the bad guys lose. Where they don’t care about someone being infected or not. Where they don’t judge someone for simply being Sarkaz. Or just by being queer.” She looks at Folinic once again. “There’s still a lot I don’t understand.”
“So, you are telling me that you like them and they make you feel like you are getting to experience something you never did when you were a child?” Folinic says.
Mudrocks takes a second, but she nods. “Yes.” And adds. “I’ve been feeling a lot like this lately. Dinners with your family, movie nights, even the simple act of talking with other operators have been giving me this feeling.” It’s strange to admit this, isn’t it?
Folinic must share the feeling as she smiles at her partner. “I get it. And, there’s nothing bad about this, I just found it rather cute.” She does? “Especially when I saw you and Lisa talking about that one show she likes.” Oh, she saw that… Mudrock blushes a little, and a side of her wishes she was wearing her mask. “I just asked because I wanted to know. I care about you after all.” Yes, yes she does and there isn’t one day when Mudrock isn’t certain of that. She cares about Folinic just the same.
“I thought it was a tad embarrassing.”
Folinic brings her partner’s hand close to her and kisses it. “It isn’t. I think all of us want to rescue something from our own childhoods, or something we wish we had.” Is that so?
This strikes Mudrock’s curiosity. “You too?” She asks.
To with Folinic answers like she does most questions. “I don’t have the time for it.”
“You work too much Luiza. Even you must take a break.” This is an issue that a lot of people been talking to her about it. “Care to tell me?”
“When I was in Ursus when I was little… There was… This is embarrassing but…” She waits for one, maybe two seconds. “There was this series of books about a little Cautulus girl that lived in the countryside, I loved reading those, but I had to force myself to stop. I needed to study, become a medic. You know how it is.” In a way, she does, but… It’s sad that she just stopped herself from enjoying those books.
“Did those books had a name?” Mudrock asks.
“I think it was something like…” She pauses for a second, maybe two. “Berenice Jábuticaba, that’s the name of the main character. I don’t remember the rest.” Understandable.
After that, they go quiet, each thinking about what to say. Eventually, they decide to do something different.
It was early in the morning, Folinic had a rare day off, an order from doctor Kal’tsit. Mudrock was idly fiddling with the tablet before putting it back on the nightstand, Folinic still asleep, resting her whole body on Mudrock’s. Right now, a receipt for purchase has been sent to Mudrock, confirming the purchase of a reprint of a book by the name – Berenice Jábuticaba and the Viscount of Somewhere Far.
She hopes that Folinic enjoys the gift.