tampered | ongoing; closed

ongoing; closed

When; 17 May, afternoon
Rating; G
Characters;

soulofocean
Summary; A princess shouldn't be sleeping on the couch, honestly.
Log; The sprawling apartment in which most of Presea's friends lived was always a little short of space, as people came and went and they opened the rooms to them. Presea was no stranger to close quarters, given the way she'd spent most of her time in the Castle during Cephiro's last crisis, but here, at least, there was a better solution than the one they were using.

The apartment was emptier nowadays, with the sudden departure of Mokona, Shin, and Hikaru. In order to do something useful and not worry so much while Umi was in the hospital, Presea had walked around the apartment and taken stock. They had several bedrooms they weren't using, preserved as if their owners had left this very morning. She shut the doors again quietly, contemplating. Clef had came to her last week, saying something about quartering the princess, who was still tittering cheerfully about the adventure of sleeping on the living room couch. She'd thought, then, that they were pressed for space, but with the subsequent departures and the distraction of the sheep plants, the matter hadn't been resolved.

Umi was coming home today. Presea fully intended to persuade her to take at least a day off of work for the rest of her recovery. And while she was here, perhaps they could have a talk.

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Presea smiled gently. She was glad that Umi seemed to be understanding. Even if it wasn't going to be easy for her to do, she was willing.

"It might be better to have a couple ready, just in case," she said in a practical manner. But that can wait a little while until you're all better. We can all do it together. I'm sure Fuu and Clef wouldn't mind helping."

She shifted the empty box on her hip and continued, "We don't even have to do it right now, if you're still tired."

"Thank you. I know: this is WAY too silly of me." She felt like smiling back, even if it still grated a bit. Umi just needed to look it on the best side: these friends of hers were finally free of The City's weirdness and perils. Missing them was inevitable, but there was little good in not using what rooms they had. That wouldn't help her miss them less.

She shook her head and looked back at the door.

"No, it's fine. You said it yourself: this is something we've been putting off for far too long now." Her smile grew steadier, more genuine, though still tired. "I don't think Clef or Fuu would mind if we give it a head start!"

Presea shook her head. "It's not silly to be sad they're gone. But it is a little silly not to do anything after that." She opened the door. It had been a random choice, simply the nearest to the living room, but judging by the nautical theme, probably had been Shin's.

"I'll go get some more boxes," she said, hanging Umi the one she had, "and a marker so we can label them."

She went back to the kitchen then, giving Umi just a little more time to adjust to what they were going to do.

The Water Knight watched Presea go, wondering how did the Pharle always know exactly how to go about these things. She could bet that brief trip to get more boxes had been an intended move. It wasn't as if this was going to be easy for Umi, even if she'd finally agreed to it. Presea probably guessed she needed a moment to come to terms with that.

Sighing, she took the time she'd been given to look around the place. It was beautiful. In the way only someone who dearly loved the sea could make a room beautiful. Maybe she could keep some of these in her own room! Umi didn't think it cheeky to assume Shin would have liked that.

"Then there's the fish." She murmured, all to herself. Her smile gained in determination. She'd take care of those. Some of Shin's things would be boxed and preserved in the event her friend came back. But keeping others around would help her remember him without nostalgia. He was home now, with his companions, right where he wanted to be.

With a little nod, she set the box down and started sorting through the belongings as she waited for Presea to return.

Well, this was a reassuring sign, Presea thought, when she returned to see Umi already at work. She smiled, setting the other boxes down and joining the girl. She looked around the room herself. She'd never had the occasion to be in here before, and it really was a lovely place.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

"...Good. I think. Though I'm not really the best at organizing anything." There was this sheepish tone in Umi's voice, though the Magic Knight didn't exactly know where the words were coming from. Something told her she'd never been the best at keeping her room in order, even if the reason why was as vague as the memories that went with it.

She smiled and showed Presea the object she'd just been examining. It was a small figurine that depicted a group of leaping doplhins.

"Have a look at this. Shin really knows how to make a room feel more like home or what."

Presea smiled. "That's lovely!" she said. She paused, and then, "You know, I doubt he'd mind if you kept a few things to remember him by."

She turned in a slow circle, surveying, and then clapped her hands. "Luckily, I am very good at organizing things!" she said cheerfully.

Well, this is the Pharle whose favorite thing is "a clean room." She got to work with what Umi already had, sorting it into piles to go into the same boxes.

"I was thinking just that while you went to get the boxes..." Umi confessed, making a point to not let the maudlin feeling get the better of her. "Glad you agree!"

Still, she found herself holding the figurine a bit closer. It reminded her of the little hollow she felt inside as of late, in a way. The one she couldn't still explain to herself.

But leave that be. The Water Knight went to fetch more things for packing up and labeling. "I think finding a place to store all these boxes will be the trickiest part."

"Well, we could use one of these empty rooms," Presea suggested as they began to fill boxes at her direction. She hummed a bit (yay for cleaning!) but then asked, "So, this memory loss problem of yours... have you found out anything else?"

She fisted her hand in an innocent sheet, betraying some concern, but then shook her head and refolded it to place in the box.

Umi giggled a bit, despite herself, at Presea's enthusiasm. It somehow made her feel Mokona's absence all the more: she could almost imagine the bouncing ball of fluff coming in and scattering the objects they were packing, just like he used to do at Presea's study back in the day.

At the mention of the memory issues, she shrugged. It bothered her a lot, but Umi knew she'd be able to get to the bottom of it somehow. "Not much. But it looks like only parts of my memories are fuzzy. At least nothing else has come up yet..."

And she made a face, hoping she hadn't just jinxed it. "Not having my fencing skills there when I needed them the most was enough of A PAIN." Quite literally.

Funnily enough, Presea's thoughts were along the same direction. Mokona would have done it to make Umi feel better, she thought, so maybe she wouldn't have tied him up and suspended him above a boiling pot ~~for too long~~. She shut a box and put Shin's name on it, along with a general idea of its contents, and then looked up at Umi.

"Your fencing skills, and parts of your memories..." she repeated contemplatively. Maybe if she'd been around to see a lot of deity deals before she would have had a guess. As it was, she was clueless. She shook her head and mulled over it.

"Both seem like such strange things to disappear. I know you've been here for quite a while, but even so! It isn't as if you let your fencing get rusty."

Umi shook her head as she took a seat on Shin's bed, fiddling with another box, her gaze lowered. "It's not that. This feels too weird... You don't just lose that kinda skills from one day to the next, you know?"

Truth be told, after what Shalimar had told her, she had a very good theory. Umi just refused to dwell on it yet. There was a place she could check about it to see if it held any clues, but not even that was a certainty. The Water Knight was having the most trouble explaining herself why, if it was a deal's consequence as she was starting to believe, she wasn't able to recall anything about it.

She placed a couple of books about ocean life inside the box, retrieved one to leaf through it, and breathed deeply. "No, it's obviously this place's weirdness at work. At least I still got my magic..."

Presea nodded, handing another couple of books to Umi. "It's odd to me that you'd keep that and not the rest."

Her tone was not accusatory, but somewhat curious. Umi wasn't meeting her eyes and she was beginning to wonder if the girl had some sort of unpleasant theory.

Well, she did. And even if it was far from a given Umi was already having trouble concealing the facts. Truth be told she didn't expect to manage for long. But the Knight of Water needed to be sure before she reached any conclusions. Or sought advise. Maybe that would be a good idea too.

"...Not that the stuff this place pulls ever makes sense." She murmured, frustrated at The City at large, and kept browsing the book's pages. "If it did it'd become more predictable, right? And we could predict what's coming next."

"I've long given up on that," Presea said dryly. "None of the magicians here can see the future." She continued sorting efficiently. She paused, smiled. "Is the book any good?"

It was an honest question; she liked reading too.

"There's no point in doing that. The future's always changing." She said that with such surety... True, it had to be partly as Yuuko said: some things were fated. But what decisions people made on the go also dictated their future and others'. If she was right on her suspicion... Umi might have changed someone else's future too.

The book question was like waking up from a trance. She blinked, blue eyes huge with surprise, as if the last she'd have expected was for Presea to ask something like that.

"Aw, it's... mostly underwater photography!" Umi raised the book to display the large full-page photo of a bank of hammerhead sharks against a shot of bright sunlight coming from above water. "Look. Isn't it gorgeous? That's what the sea on Earth looks like. I think I'll be calling dibs on this one too."

Presea looked at the page, her eyes bright with interest. "That's really beautiful!" she declared. She'd never seen sharks before (the fauna on Cephiro were pretty different, after all), so she cocked her head to one side and gazed for a moment.

"You have a lovely world, Umi," she said to the Knight.

"It's really very pretty. Especially the ocean." Umi said that with a silly hint of pride. It felt like part of herself, after all. As Shin obviously felt it too.

She stared down at the book and turned the page, moving on to a shot of sea gulls diving for fish about breaking waves. "I wish we could show you all someday. Just like we're able to visit Cephiro..."

Presea shook her head, still smiling. "I don't need anywhere else but Cephiro," she said. "Not that the City isn't very... interesting. But it provides us interesting problems too. I'd almost rather be sitting through another conference at home, no rather how boring they can be sometimes."

She picked up another book and thumped Umi in the head with it, but in a gentle, teasing way. "There's a lot of work to do here, as well," she continued, and then placed the book in a box with some others.

Umi faked a little Ouch, wincing playfully and rubbing the spot where the book had gently bounced off her head. The Pharle sure had a way to put an end to a melancholy mood! And boy, wasn't that handy in moments like these...

"...I still want you all to visit." She insisted, stubbornly, as she put other books away. "And, one good thing about this place? It serves as a long break from school."

"It might be fun someday, if we find a way," Presea agreed. Especially if she remembered the City, she thought, because then at least she wouldn't be so much of a fish out of water.

She shook her head at Umi's next words. "You're not interested in resuming your apprenticeship?"

Presea had been taught to read and write at home, as was custom. She'd already been preparing to become Pharle at Umi's age, in fact. Things couldn't be that much different on Earth, she assumed.

"...Apprent--- aw, you mean school?" That should be the way Cephireans thought about it, huh? For all Umi knew they were mostly home-schooled.

"Not at all! I always hated studying! I mean, I know it's necessary, but..." She shrugged. It was actually imperative. All the more if she wanted to manage her father's business in the future. But just the thought of homework and assignments and -- there she had to smile -- dumb filed trips made her skin itch.

"It's a break, so I'll take it." She concluded, hoping Presea wouldn't lecture her about it. As she believed she might.

"I've always loved what I do," Presea said with a smile. "But I was lucky like that, to be chosen."

She stood and stretched and then picked up another box. "If it's not your thing, I'm not surprised you like the break." As Umi had suspected, she wasn't going to lecture. She really was happy about her job, personally, but not everyone was, and that was understandable.

"I think I was chosen too. Sort of..." Umi tapped her fingers on the surface of the book she'd just closed, then hugged it close to her chest, frowning. It wasn't doing any good: it was still just half of it she could remember. But she reached for the part that did stand clear in her memories and held onto it.

"I know I'm supposed to make my parents proud. My father specially." If she could have heard herself... without being under the trade's influence... well. The Water Knight could have figured out there was something seriously wrong. 'Father' instead of 'dad'... "Because I'm supposed to be a businesswoman one day or something."

She shrugged and set the book aside with a slightly puzzled expression on her face that didn't look half as troubled as Umi somehow sensed it should. "But I don't really see it as that pressing anymore."

Presea was silent for a moment, studying the Knight. "It's probably not pressing because you don't remember why it should be," she said finally. It wasn't meant to upset her, but at the same time, Presea was concerned. This memory thing... It niggled at her. She couldn't even imagine how it worried Umi.

"I guess so." It indeed bothered her. But in a way that was more discomfort than loss. She couldn't pine for things she couldn't remember. Not for something she couldn't miss. Though a gut feeling told her it was something precious that she'd lost here. Something she might value a lot.

"But I'll look into that. Somehow. For now, it's better than if I'd lost any other memories." Or so Umi believed. "Like the ones about Cephiro. Or Hikaru and Fuu."

For the time being those were the most important ones. Like what her life was all about.

"I'm glad you remember us too," Presea answered fondly. She was heartened by the fact that not all of Umi's memories had disappeared. She hadn't even considered that Umi might have lost Cephiro. That would have made all of them sadder.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," she said, trying to be confident for Umi's sake.

"I'll make sure of that." There were moments when Umi felt empty, as if hollow, and it upset her to imagine parts of her personality might be tweaked by this lack of memories. But her determination was all the same. Presea's support only strengthened it. The Water Knight had dealt with the strangeness of The City before. This would be tricky, but not a first.

"It might not bother me too much. But I'm getting back what's mine, one way or the other."

"You have a very strong will," Presea answered, half-smiling. "I'm sure you will."

Then she pointed to Umi's arm. "After this, you should rest for a while. No more heavy lifting. Or sword practice." She lifted an eyebrow. She knew how Umi liked to push herself.

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