soul_logs | I would walk five hundred miles [OPEN]

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I would walk five hundred miles [OPEN]

Characters:

faintly_smiles & OPEN
Location: The Park
Rating: PG - minor blood
Time: January 19th - Late Morning
Description: Teresa ventured beyond the city walls, and she returned to realize how debilitated she is and how this partnership system requires her participation.

Cross-posted to Dreamwidth

While she had heard the express instructions that wandering beyond the city walls was dangerous, Teresa had eventually given up making constant rounds in the city. There were patrols of people for that, and she had memorized the outside walls protecting the city by now as well as most of the streets. She was nomadic by occupation, and she couldn't well sit around all day. This slow decline into inactivity was unacceptable, and she hadn't found morning training all that interesting. The only reason she went was to observe other fighting pairs and to occasionally speak with Yuuri; his views on life and trust were fascinating.

So, she had finally acquired a large hunting knife and began to walk the desert. It was strange that walking fatigued her now, that while her stamina was great, she actually had to settle down to rest. The desert situation only seemed to compound that realization that she had been reduced to a well-exercised human without any of the benefits she remembered.

The desert was vast, and most of the common animals fled in her presence or watched from afar. When she had finally encountered a creature willing to engage her, she was curious of its healing abilities and the slow grinding drive towards thoughts that were forbidden. Her knife strikes were perfect as always, but it healed with each stroke of the blade for longer than she would have thought was possible. It was resilient, which was a surprise, and she was disappointed to realize that she was forced to withdraw and leg it back to the city walls before her human frailty forced her to deal with a greater humiliation than the deep gash to her thigh.

It was the first time she had ever had to retreat from anything before. It was a serious knock to the foundation of her beliefs that she was just plain stronger than anything she faced.

She had returned to the park lands where she made her 'home', ignoring the blood soaking her uniform leggings and eventually seating herself cross-legged near a tree. It had been a long time since she had bled without it stopping almost right away. This world had made her experience a lot of things 'for the first time', and she wasn't certain that she approved of it at all. Still, it was better than being dead.

Flexing her fingers, she laid a hand over the still bleeding wound, closing her eyes to concentrate on stopping the flow. She was again disappointed when all of her youki was sealed, and her lips down-turned into a frown of displeasure. "How bothersome."

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She offered him a confused look, not sure why she should feel good helping people who were made to be scared of her sheer existence. Everyone knew that the Organization took in abandoned girls or those sold to them, that they had all once been human but no more. Why should she feel good saving ungrateful people?

Teresa slowly turned her gaze back to Yuuri, letting him have a good look at her inhuman silver eyes and a slow sad smile came over her lips. "I am a traitor," she murmured in a matter-of-fact voice. "I broke the only rule that protects the trust that humans have for warriors of the Organization. I would do it again as well."

The confused look was returned with one of his own. He had no idea what her world was like, but shouldnt those being helped be thankful to those helping them? Yuri has a brief flash of some of the earlier days when he had arrived in Shin Makoku, but he didnt want to think that anyone else had to go through things like that.

He remained peering at her even as Teresa turned back around to stare at him. The silver colour of her eyes were different, he wouldnt lie about that, but he actually found them to be rather pretty as well. That thought mellowed a little though as he caught sight of her small sad smile. The sight of it broke his heart, and his own expression shifted to one of sadness as he softly asked, "What happened? You dont seem like a bad person at all, so I have no doubt that you had your reasons."

Teresa measured the use of telling him of the iron-clad rule of the Organization. It was a small thing really, but she had broken it so spectacularly. She had never lost her cool or her level-headedness before that moment, and she still couldn't quite figure it out.

"I killed humans," she said simply, letting that statement sink in. He was the type to jump on the first thing one said she found, so let him get eaten away by that statement first. "I had saved a small village surrounded by mountains with no where to run from a youma. Bandits had been following my progress, targeting that village and struck when I had left. It was a matter of humans hurting other humans, so I was not to get involved."

She looked away, shading herself with her long blonde hair. "They... hurt the one person I had come to care about. I lost my head, and I killed each and every bandit, so so my life was forfeit."

He waited for her answer. Yuuri wouldn't have pushed for it, but he knew that deep down that Teresa was a nice person, and that she wouldn't do anything bad without a good reason. He trusted her, and if she decided not to talk about it, then he'd respect her decision for now. Yuuri wouldn't forget about it, but he had learnt that there are sometimes a time and a place for questions an answers.

Her confession did have his eyes widening in surprise as his heart clenched at the thought of lives lost. "Eeeeh?! You killed them?" Yuuri called out in surprised. "But why?" If he had been just taken from his world, he never would have accepted that there could be reasons behind the act of killing someone else. While he'd never condone it, the young Maou also knew that people did have their reasons, and in some situations, it couldn't be helped.

Yuuri listened to every single word she spoke, feeling his heart clench at the thought of people killing each other, but his thoughts froze as she glanced away and mentioned that someone she cared about got hurt. The image of Conrad's reactions whenever he had been in danger sprang to mind, and he glanced down to the hands paused in suturing her wound as the memory weighed heavily on his mind.

"It's human nature for people to become emotional when those closest to them are hurt," the young Maou softly said. He did whenever anyone he cared for got injured, while he'd never taken a human life before, Yuuri had begun learning here that there were many different ways that people reacted to such loss. Just like the different reactions Conrad and Aldebert had when Julia had lost her life. "Did she--- die?"

She made no excuses for her behaviour, but death was a normal part of her involvement with anything. Where she went, death tended to follow in swift succession, and she had no problem with that either. It was the life that she had lived and was used to, but of course it had all changed once Clare had forced herself into her life.

"A human consciousness is all I have left," she murmured softly, still shaded by her hair. With Clare, she had found a reason to keep on living, and that change had been good enough for her. For the first time in her life where it was filled with constant betrayals, she had been truly happy.

"The rule is iron-clad. Warriors like myself gathered to cut off my head, but I refused because of the one I had taken in. So, the Organization sent a hunting party after me, and one of them became a monster..." she murmured softly, not about to explain what that meant. "She would have killed me and then moved to Clare... so she's as good as dead."

"You have a lot more than that," Yuuri said with a smile. He didn't mind that she was hiding away from him. Obviously this was a difficult subject for her, and that the girl she had with her meant as much to Teresa as Conrad did to him. Glancing back down to the wound, the young Maou began working on Teresa's wound again.

He listened quietly while suturing her wound. The story she told him left him feeling sad, and while a lot of it went over his head, Yuuri couldn't help but feel empathetic towards her plight. "I'm sorry that you had to go through something like that," he softly murmured while working on the tail ends of his suture. Tying it off and cutting the thread, the young Maou pulled out another cloth to clean up the new traces of blood before glancing up to regard her. "I wish that there was something that I could have done to help." Even if he knew that going to her world to help her was impossible, it didn't stop the feeling being there.

Glancing at Yuuri after he had returned to work on her leg, Teresa watched him silently in the moments after his words. He didn't know what he was talking about, but she was still pleased that someone said that there was more than just her mind human. No one had said that to her before, and she suspected that he would have said the same thing even if he had known everything about her. That seemed to be the kind of person that he was.

Shrugging at his apology, she hadn't told him expecting one at all. It was her life to lead, and she had lead it to the best of her ability. She didn't waste time on regretting what was done to her or the people involved in it. "I knew the rules; I don't regret my decisions in that life at all. Right now, I'm living on burrowed time." He was a good human. "You should simply do the best you can in this war if you are committed to it."

The shrug didn't distract him at all. Yuuri meant his words regardless of what she said, and he was glad to see that she didn't regret her actions either. Although the way that she spoke about borrowed time, it left him wondering to whether she was one of the few who'd come here after they'd died. That thought caused his chest to tighten, and try as he might, he couldn't stop the sadness he felt within.

"Then you should continue on living and make what you can of what life you have here," Yuuri said before he pulled the cloth off and took out an adhesive pad to place over the sutured area to help protect it. Bandaging the area, the young Maou nodded his head to Teresa's words as he murmured, "I do what I can with what I've got, and regardless of the situation, I won't ever give up."

This place was a little strange to her anyway, and she wondered how long it would take her to feel comfortable in a normal human life. She supposed being part of a war zone didn't make it a human life, but this was closer than she had been since she was sold to the Organization. She didn't really have a life here yet, too confused with everything that was different.

She looked at the wound just before it was dressed with a bandage, but she didn't mind at all. She would need to wash and repair her leggings after this. "How do you live in a place you don't know anything about," she finally asked simply. "You don't seem like the type that gives up on anything once you've set your mind to it. That makes you stubborn."

Happy that the bandage was wrapped around tightly, Yuuri finally sat himself back before glancing back up at Teresa. The question had him blinking as he considered his answer. Hand up to his chin, he rubbed at it in thought. How did he do it? That was something that he didn't really think much about. He simply did it, which made sense in his mind.

"I don't really think about it," he murmured honestly. "Death City is the second place I've lived in that I didn't know anything about. I figure 'why worry about it' and just go with the flow. It's better than weighing yourself down with worries, right?"

Stubborn? "Eeeh?" His eyes widened at the accusation, and he opened his mouth to debate that statement before promptly closing it. She was right, but he wouldn't have called it stubbornness! Rubbing at the back of his head sheepishly, the young Maou muttered, "Aaa well I guess that I just don't see the point in giving up once you've started something."

She had to wonder about his story, but he appeared to be honest enough. He must have come from some strange places to take all of this in so casually and then to turn protective over this place. Perhaps he came from a time and place where lightning flowed through veins as well?

"I suppose so, but this place is vastly different from where I'm from," she stated with a bit of a shrug. She shifted her leg, feeling the bandage and not being concerned about having it or sutures in her leg.

Teresa shifted herself on the bed, drawing her injured leg up and under the sheet that she was using to cover herself. "Hmpt, stubborn," she replied before reaching for her leggings and slipping them under the sheet with her so that she could pull them back on. "When do I remove the sutures?"

"It's sort of similar from my homeworld, but it's completely different from Shin Makoku," Yuuri said with a smile. He moved to step back when Teresa made signs of moving. Of course he did watch her to make sure that she wasn't in any pain, but he surprisingly found that she honestly wasn't. It was an amazing concept for Yuuri, and he couldn't help but regard her with slight awe.

Shaking his head and turning his face away as she re-clothed herself, he smiled happily at her second stubborn comment. Momentarily forgetting about her dressing situation, he peered back, turned bright red, before abruptly glancing the other way as he blurted out, "Aaa! They should be okay to take out in four or five days!"

Teresa was accepting that he at least knew how this world worked, though she had never heard of Shin Makoku before. She supposed that it was some other world or something, but there was no need to even pretend to understand. If he wanted to explain it better, he could at a later date.

She slipped her blooded legging on her body, before she tossed the sheet aside when she was dressed again. There was still a large red stain and a rip in the material where the white bandages showed. His red face matched her clothing it seemed. "Are you going to be alright with your face that red?"

Rising, she moved to step back into her metal boots, clipping them in place with a routine expertise.

"Huh? Oh! My face will be fine," Yuuri sheepishly said in a hope to get her attention away from the current state of his face. He really needed to get himself under control! He hadn't reacted this badly in a long time, and Yuuri knew that he was embarrassing himself.

Glancing back, he couldn't help but notice the bloodied leggings "You should probably get them cleaned before they stain," Yuuri offered befoe suggesting, "Or maybe get a new pair if you can't get rid of the blood, although I'm sure that you'll be able to!"

Clearly he was having some kind of interesting reaction to the sheer thought that he might catch her exposed. She hadn't experienced a lot of humans like that, and while she could bug him about it, she decided that his innocence was best preserved. "I hope so. You look like you've seen too much sun."

Glancing at her leggings, she continued to put on her boots before stamping her feet to make them settle before looking at him again. "I will clean them when I return to the park. I believe there's a stream there that will be of use," she murmured in a non-chalant way. "These are the only clothes I have; there is no retainer to provide me with new leggings. I will repair these ones."

He was rubbing at the back of his head uncomfortably at her continued observation. Yeah, he was really going to have to work on that. He couldn't continue going around making a fool of himself, after all! "I guess I'll just have to get less sun," he said with an awkward laugh.

"The park?" Yuuri asked while blinking in surprise. Why would she be cleaning her leggings in a stream? That didn't make much sense to Yuuri, and that much showed in his expression as he said, "Why don't you just use the washing machine in your apartment? Or I guess you could try soaking it with soap as well--- Eeeh?! You don't have any other clothes?!"

She knew it wasn't the sun, but she let him think that illusion all he liked. She was just getting ready to go now that she had satisfied the terms of his bringing her here. She had allowed her wound to be fixed, and now she could return to her patrols once she fixed her leggings.

Teresa offered him a clueless look, clearly not understanding the term. "Washing machine? What's that?" She hadn't spent any time in her apartment since she had been told she wasn't allow to put holes in the floor to lean against a sword. Plus, there were no candles to illuminate the room.

"Why would I? The retainers being us new uniforms," she said simply, not sure why he was reacting in such a way. "However, I know how to make repairs, so I'll wash and repair them. It's just a small tear in the material."

"Eeeeh? You don't know what a washing machine is?" He asked with a gasp, momentarily forgetting the fact that she came from a world that didn't have electricity. Shaking his head, Yuuri's grin widened as he said, "It's a machine that washes your clothes in bulk for you."

While he had nothing against fixing your own clothes, she would need more than one set with all the damage clothing went through here. "Aaa well eventually you won't be able to just fix it, so it's probably a good idea to get some more so then you've always got something to wear even if lots of them get damaged."

Teresa couldn't help but stare blankly at Yuuri again at the description of a washing machine. She wasn't entirely certain what a machine was to begin with, but she wondered if it was another crate with lights and lightning veins. "I only have one set of clothes, so I don't need a machine?"

She knew how to purchase clothing, had even been in one of those seamstress houses, but there had never been any need to buy anything for herself. Everything was provided by the Organization and what wasn't, she caught in the wilds. "Hmm, I suppose I'll just have to put more effort into dodging attacks then." That seemed the obvious solution.

He had never really done much washing until he'd come here, but if he ever got anything super dirty, he just threw it into the machine to get it clean again. Yuuri was paranoid about stains and never getting them out, and he didn't want to have to throw anything away if he didn't have to.

"You can't use soap in the stream. If you want, I can show you mine and let you use it? I'm sure that there's something at my apartment that needs washing, unless you'd want to use the one at your place?" Yuuri asked with a friendly smile.

He stared at her lightly at the solution she gave then blinked. Well, he supposed she could do that, but everyone should have to have more than one set of clothes. "Aaa well, I guess that would work, but you'd probably be better off getting something else as well, especially before summer starts!" If, of course, they were still stuck here in summer.

She wasn't used to using soap on her clothing in the first place, so that didn't seem like much of a problem in her mind. If she rubbed the material together or over rocks, it would eventually get clean. "I can use the stream. It seems to be the easiest choice." And the less confusing one as well.

Her place? Oh yes, she had one of those rooms for herself, but it was vacant. No candles, and it was lonely in there. She didn't like it much, so she never used it. She preferred the wilds; it was more natural and like where she had come from.

"I have no currency," she finally said after a moment of thought. "And fashion styles here are vastly different from what I know." She wasn't sure what to make of some of the outfits that people wore around the streets.

"Well... if you're sure?" Yuuri said despite the uncertain look colouring his expression. It was obvious that he wasn't entirely happy with that thought, but it wasn't as though he was going to force her either if she really wanted to use the stream. Still, he let the topic drop as he sighed to himself.

"Some shops you don't even need money. And besides, if you do need any, I can buy whatever you need," he offered with a returned smile. Yuuri didn't mind buying things for others in the slightest. And while his apartment did take up a large chunk of his money, there would always be some to help out someone else in need. "It's not much different from my world with fashion, but if you need any help, I'll be more than happy to help you."

Teresa was certain that she wouldn't change her mind, and she was also certain that she wouldn't regret it either. She wasn't helpless, and the act of cleaning was one she had had to do frequently. There wasn't always a retainer around to provide what she needed, and she was too proud to go looking for one.

She looked at him curiously at the offer of paying for her. She had never had anyone buy her anything, save when the village had provided her room and board after removing their youma because she could. "So... you will take me to a seamstress and provide the funds for that? I have nothing to exchange for that."

"Mmhm that's right!" Yuuri said with a large smile. He was more than happy to buy her whatever she wanted, so long as he had enough money, and knowing that she'd accept made him feel happy. Knowing that his money would go to a good cause always made the young Maou happy.

When she spoke of not having something in exchange had him shaking his head, and while he was smiling, there was a definite 'not taking no for an answer' air around him while he spoke, "You don't have to exchange anything. I'm more than happy to do this for you."

She wasn't so certain about his charity, since she had always worked for the funds that she was provided. She also wasn't used to needing to purchase things in the first place, so both were a rather novel concept to her. She stood staring at the sheet for awhile.

"I will find something to exchange it with. I'm strong enough to provide at least that," she finally replied, nodding her head at how acceptable that sounded to her. "I will contact you if I am in need of anything, yes?"

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