driftfleet | (no subject)

[Tina had had a lot of fun swimming around and exploring on the water planet, but once more, talk of healing the terrible disease sweeping the Dasioe and going off fighting monsters has left her feeling like she's in over her head.

So she does what she does best nowadays- tries to make sure her shipmates are taken care of. She's gathered and bought some of the flavorful kelp growing in abundance on this planet, and in the kitchen, there's a lovingly hand-lettered sign hanging up:

BURGER OF THE DAY
Green Mystery-
You never know what flavor the kelp will be!
Made Upon Request

After being reassured by Misty that the alleged unicorn meat is not, in fact, cursed, an addendum is added to the sign:

OR:
Burger Made From Floot Brand Potted Meat Food
(May or may not contain unicorn)

Because she has to get rid of it somehow, she supposes.]

[She makes something of a dramatic show at looking over the sign before finally saying something.]

What's chef's choice?

I haven't touched the cans of alleged unicorn meat, so... I'd go with the kelp. The flavor is a mystery even to me, because I might or might not have forgotten to label it...

[She takes a moment to act incredibly deep in thought.]

Let's try the kelp burger!

Right on. [Tina selects a few strands of kelp, sniffs them, then turns the stove on and begins to heat them up.] So, uhm, have you found anything interesting on this planet? You know, besides the fish people.

I went explorin' with these girls I met. We found some cool stuff! I dunno how my music player got there, but it did.

Oh, that's great! I'd love to go exploring myself, but I'm afraid I wouldn't make it to the end of it in one piece.

[Did someone say food!? Yes please.]

I'll take a unicorn burger, Miss Chef!

I take no responsibility for any curses, just FYI. [But she says this with a smile.] Also I cannot guarantee there's any unicorn in it. ... or actual meat, come to think of it.

That's okay. The easiest way to find out is to try it, right?

[He doesn't appear to be especially worried about getting cursed.]

Okay. I asked Misty if it was cursed and she said it wasn't, even though you don't... seem to be too worried about that.

Cursed? Why would it be cursed?

[He sounds more intrigued than alarmed, which just shows how seriously he takes that sort of thing. ...Or maybe he likes mystery, who knows.]

Allen told me it might be. He said his ex killed a unicorn and it cursed a whole kingdom. ... He was trying to be helpful.

[y i k e s]

You should definitely take what Allen says with a grain of salt. I don't doubt that it happened to him, but... I think most of his experiences don't really apply to normal situations.

[Tina nods slowly, toying with the tab on a can of Potted Meat Food.]

I figured it was better safe than sorry when it comes to curses. That's not something I wanted to inflict on everyone. But I trust Misty when she says it's safe.

She seems like the sort of person who knows what they're talking about.

[Insert finger waggle about magic here or something.]

Anyway, I'm pretty sure Asuna could heal any curse-related status effects that might hit us, so it's fine.

Oh! Really? [Tina sounds interested in that as she finally pops open the can and starts shaping the contents into a burger patty.] Man, that's got to be a handy ability to have. Back home we couldn't exactly get cursed... to my knowledge, anyway... but if you got sick or something, well, we didn't have any magic or anything.

Yeah, it's sort of... rare, I guess you could say, where I'm from.

[It technically shouldn't even work here, because video games, but who even knows what the Atroma can do. His girlfriend perpetually looks like an elf lady, after all, and he can turn into one willy nilly, so...]

But it's come in handy, so no complaints on my end.

I'm a little envious. I mean, I wrote a lot of fanfiction back home, so I lived some different lives in my imagination, but this isn't quite the same thing...

Fanfiction?

[haven't heard that one before.]

Uh-huh. I take TV shows and movies and stuff I like and write new stories about the characters. Sometimes I put myself in as a new character.

Ohhhh. That's, um, creative.

[It's like roleplaying? Kinda? Textually? He knows about that.]

I love doing it. ... even though Louise sometimes reads it and critiques it. Actually, my whole family thinks it's a little weird.

Families don't always get the hobbies of other people. I figure that's part of growing up... my family never really got why I was so into games all the time.

I'm lucky in that they never try to discourage me from doing it, even if they do think it's odd. So that's nice. [Remembering what she's trying to do, Tina drops the Meat Food patty into a pan and turns the stove on, starting to fry it.] I even read some in front of my whole school once.