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♥ Who: Gladio and OTA.
♥ Where: Everywhere.
♥ When: January 3rd.
♥ What: Gladio finding his feet and meeting the locals.
♥ Rating: PG-13

Another Strange Place:
[Gladio had been walking toward a small group of children, smiling as disarmingly as a man as large and seemingly intimidating as he could. The adults were nowhere to be seen, aside from some of the elderly. He'd hoped to gain some information. Anything, to help...

But between one step and the next... everything went dark. Not not a bad kind of dark. It felt... strange...

... When Gladio opened his eyes to see sky above him, white clouds, blue, clear sky... He turned his head slightly to see... nothing he expected. Instead of rustic houses, dirt paths, wooden fences and children at play, he saw white. White pillars and columns shaped like trees. Red and white ornaments. Strange looking birds. And he was laying down in the centre of it all.

He rose slowly, turned and dropped his legs over the edge of slab of carved stone he lay upon. When Gladio looked down he still wore the same clothes he'd been wearing (black leather pants, dark brown tunic, black cloak), so at least that hadn't changed. There was a sigh as he lifted a hand to scrub across his face.]

Damn train's done it again...

[Was this a side mission? Why had he been pulled away? And where was everyone else? When Gladio looked at his wrist he frowned, his SCA was gone. That didn't bode well. He was just contemplating calling out when a strange robot approached him... and that's where Gladio found out that he wasn't in Irivar anymore.

He was lead from the stone slab into another area to find more robots... he was handed a tablet, some local currency... and sent him on his way.

Gladio stepped out of the, what was it? He looked back and up. Temple... definitely a temple. He stepped out... and immediately sat himself down on the steps in the snow to try and work his head around what the hell he'd gotten himself into this time.]

A Teeny Tiny Fortune:
[Having noticed the strange booth, Gladio approached curiously. These robots were a strange thing, but so was the box that he was handed. He shook it as directed, a small, amused smile on his lips.

Then he was given a piece of paper.]

"The smallest things can bring the biggest rewards." Huh... good things in small packages, right? Thanks.

[Still looking very amused, Gladio shoved the paper in his pocket and turned to go.]

Stuck On You:
[Apparently he needed to look for a place to live. This was a big step up from a small room with a smaller bed shared between four people.

Gladio had taken his cloak off and had it wrapped over one hand. The laces of his leather tunic had been loosened and he was considering just taking that off as well, but figured near stripping in the middle of the street could be frowned upon.

He was so distracted by his surroundings that he wasn't paying attention to where he was going. Gladio bumped into someone. Automatically he reached out to stop whoever he ran into from hitting the ground... except that never happened. Wait, why couldn't he let go?]

Sorry! You okay?

Taking Stock:
[He'd found his way to the centre of the city it seemed. He'd found a fountain, an interesting structure that Gladio stood for a while, just looking at. He moved around it slowly, looking at all angles, before he sat himself down on the edge.

He stretched his legs out in front of himself and sighed.

So far this place didn't seem to have anything in common with where he had been before... He was starting to get a sinking feeling.

It was cold, there was snow everywhere, but nothing that was going to bother him so much that he was rushing to get indoors. He'd spent so much time inside over the last few months, even the snow was welcome.]

Home Away From Home:
[Houses... Small houses bunched together... And he was supposed to find one.]

Right... so how the hell does this work?

[Gladio walked up the street, then down it again, before he stopped in front of a house that appeared to be vacant. The tablet thing claimed it was unoccupied, so he walked on in.

After having a look around, he laughed to himself and did what was necessary to become the new owner... and then dropped himself down on sofa. Well and truly done.]

Wildcard:
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[Gladio will be very disappointed if/when he realises that this is a dry world and there was nowhere he could get wasted.

But for the moment a hot drink would do.

He smiled down at the kid and made a little gesture for him to lead the way. Tall he might have been, built like a brick outhouse and dressed in leather and a black cloak probably didn't help his 'try not to look dangerous' habit. But Gladio hoped a smile would be disarming enough.]

Good food and a hot drink? Sold.

[Shinji's already got it stuck in his mind to reserve his judgement of a person for something other than their looks, considering how close he'd gotten to the first person he'd gotten those 'dangerous guy' vibes from. It's hard to not be a little intimidated, considering the very rough and tough appearance, but he has no actual reason to think that Gladio is a threat.]

It isn't too far of a walk, [he gestures toward the direction of the entertainment district before starting off that way,] they do keep cats in the store, though. That wouldn't be something you'd mind, is it?

Hah no, no cats are fine.

[He let his mind wander for a moment as he fell into step beside the kid, matching his pace so he kept up with him.

When he realised he'd been quiet for a little longer than acceptable, he laughed.]

Names Gladio, by the way. Thanks for this.

[It's a good thing to ask, he figures! Never know if someone's allergic or just... doesn't like animals.

But after that, Shinji doesn't have a problem with letting a bit of silence settle over them. Surely the other has a lot on his mind to be thinking about, and he wouldn't want to interrupt.

Introductions, though... those are definitely in order!]

Oh, of course. [If this is something he can help with, then he doesn't mind helping!] My name is Shinji, it's nice to meet you.

Nice meeting you too, Shinji.

[And somehow reassuring. So far the people he'd met weren't people who had duplicates on the Trecker. It made it easier to deal if everything was brand new.]

So what kinda place is this? How long've you been here?

[Those feel like... a kind of prepared couple of questions, Shinji thinks. Nothing he wans to call attention to right away, but something that he'll keep in mind for however long.]

What kind of place... [How to put this...?] It's pretty strange. The people who live here are sort of... out of touch? It seems like they've been living like robots for a very, very long time. But I don't think they're malicious, or anything like that. It isn't a bad place, or at least it hasn't been for the last year and a half.

[Gladio nodded along, though he held a good amount of scepticism over the benevolence of these robots...]

Not malicious... But somehow pull people, without asking, into a strange world and expect em to be happy about it?

That doesn't sound suspect to you?

[That's fair, Shinji knows he probably doesn't have a particularly popular viewpoint on everything here.]

They could just be really desperate. The area outside the city is really inhospitable, and the walls have expanded since I got here. [So, something is clearly working. He won't deny the fact that what they're doing is probably incredibly inconvenient for a lot of people at best, but still.] I know you wouldn't be the only person to think it's fishy, though. It's not fair to assume everyone they find is going to be on board with what they're asking of us.

[He heaved a heavy sigh.]

Place I was at before this, they'd send us out on missions to strange planets. They'd look fine. Things would be calm for a few days, and then... everything'd go to hell.

[Fighting. Lots of fighting. Kids being forced to fight. Being dying...]

Guess it's hard to break that habit of suspicion.

[Ah, so this is someone used to more... interplanetary travel. Shinji had a suspicion of his own, but he wasn't planning on asking outright, at least not right away.]

I'm sorry, [he says it as sincerely as he can.] That sounds like a lot to cope with, I don't blame you for thinking it's suspect. It isn't like everything here has been perfect, either, but things getting chaotic has been really rare so far.

Not a problem.

And I believe you.

[Didn't mean he planned on lowering his guard any time soon, just to be safe. He'd keep his eyes open. Even if this place was as peaceful as Shinji claimed, anything could go wrong at a moments notice.]

[The last time things went particularly sideways, it felt like there was a pretty clear lead-up to it, but Shinji also sort of assumes that it might not be the most comforting thing for a newbie to be hearing right off the bat.]

Either way, I hope it's less... hectic than the last place you were. There are a lot of really kind and helpful people that have been brought in too, which, I think, really makes it a lot more bearable.

Wide open spaces and a sky above me. Already a step in the right direction.

[He cast a sideways glance at Shinji and grinned.]

You're being helpful. And I appreciate that.

[He's doing his best to be helpful! But he'll gently divert that praise, wanting to take the focus off of himself.]

Were none of the planets you went to quite like this...?

[Sounds like a very... cramped lifestyle.]

Not a single one. Lets see... went to space, a dead planet where it's people lived in caves, a water planet where people lived on little islands... a beautiful world where it's people were mostly farmers. A world where half was fire and half ice... A holiday planet with a weird volcano that erupted with weird, edible, purple goop.

[Gladio rattled the places off and found himself laughing by the end of it, because when he started listing them, it just sounded so weird to him.]

But places like this? As advanced? No. Other than my home. But even we didn't have robots.

[Who was the first person who had the bright idea to eat something that erupted out of a volcano??? Wild!! Shinji watches Gladio as he lists off all those strange planets, a small flicker of wonder in his expression as he does.

It really is surprising what kinds of surprises are in the far corners of the universe, huh?]

Yeah, this world is a bit more advanced than the one I came from. [Even if it feels like something that potentially could happen in a future where it, uh, didn't all go to hell.] All of those planets sound like something to see, though.

[A good question, one Gladio never got the answer to. Of course there was also the fact that most people ended up swapping memories on that world too. And the sky was purple. Lots of weird, weird things about that planet...]

So nothing like that happens here? No planet hopping?

[Truly a bizarre sounding place.]

As far as I've heard, no.

[The robots, at least a number of them, might have just abandoned this planet if something like that were possible, he thinks.]

Everyone here has stayed firmly on this planet.

Actually a relief to hear that.

[He laughed, a low, deep rumble. Planet hopping had not sat well with him at all. He liked to keep his feet firmly on the ground.]

So what does happen here?

[He can imagine how draining that would be! Thank you, Havenwell, for not subjecting everyone to that.]

Hmm, well, the people who live here have their own traditions and holidays they observe. [Some of them can be kind of strange, but some of them aren't too unfamiliar in theory.] They held a festival throughout town a few months ago, and there was a party to mark one year since they started to bring people in.

Mostly, though, there's been a lot of cleaning up. The city was smaller and a lot less... lively, back when I first showed up.

[So from being shipped around to save worlds for an unknown entity, he was to help clean up a single world because it's people let it go to hell. There was a common tread running through all this that Gladio was just too tired to tug on just yet.]

Least this place gets bigger the more people you get.

[He grimaced and shook his head.]

You've trains where you're from? 160 plus people on a train. Most of them not even human. [Like the giant robot who got stuck in doors. Or the woman who was a whale.]

Edited 2021-01-13 14:45 (UTC)

[At the question, Shinji nods a little - his world had trains! The meta narrative even used them as a means of portraying emotional turmoil, just swell stuff! Which, ah, using them as a means to hop from one turbulent world to another to another kind of works well with that meaning in mind.

It's nothing Shinji would actually bring up, though, so instead the focus is on what Gladio has to say next.]

Was that such a problem? [He asks out of pure curiosity, his experiences with non-human beings has been a mixed bag so far. Some of them had been huge, some small, and plenty had simply been human-shaped enough for their true statuses to be barely noticeable.]

On a personal level? No.

But Orisa couldn't fit through doors half the time. She was a sentient robot. Really sweet. But massive. [He laughed.] Small train, big robots and massive humans. It was hard even for me. Couldn't even fit on my bunk properly.

[Something about the 'sentient robot' piece of information hits him kind of... poorly, but the only real indication to let on to that fact is a moment where his lips draw into a slightly tighter line.

Not that it's a wholly bad thing to hear, though,] Ah, we had someone like that here for a while. He was... pretty big. [Trying to imagine him on a train is. Yeah. Okay, Shinji can see where that would be a problem.] But the bunks weren't even big enough for you?

[Gladio may be Tall, but not, like, unreasonably so? Was this train made for generally smaller people? Hm...!]

Just over five foot in length. I'm just over six. [He flashed a grin.] Cramped doesn't come close.

[And throw in the fact he'd often shared that narrow bunk... Admittedly he wouldn't have changed that for the world, but it hadn't been the best or most comfortable of sleeps.]