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That actually gets a bit of a laugh from him. "Nope, I can't swim like, at all. I just also don't technically need to breathe all the time so I just kinda...sink? And then walk back to where I was going?" That's not alarming at all, right?

"Oh yeah, he had no idea we were coming. I had to kind of uh, fight the guy that put him there? It wasn't great. We kinda fibbed when we found him and said Viewax had offered him a pardon."

"...You don't need to breathe?"

That more than anything else takes priority. She knows that constructs don't need to breathe as much, but they were made like that. Wayne has been existing in her head as somewhere between human and not, but she'd never thought about breathing in that.

...okay yeah he could see where such a sentence would be alarming. Anyone chatting with him here might have had something to say about, in hindsight.

"I mean I do to be able to talk and stuff but yeah."

"....Huh."

What she's about to ask next will make more sense considering who she's close to, but...

"Did someone build you that way?"

A degree of politeness has been suspended in place of her disbelief.

A blink.

"Build- oh like a construct? Oh, nah man, nah. Been this way since I was a larva. All of us are."

Edited 2023-03-12 01:38 (UTC)

"And when you say larva, is that just your word for baby, or is it something else?"

Beat.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne, if this is something terribly obvious I'm missing or really rude, but since I can't see you, all I can go on is what you tell me."

"That's what I've heard, yeah." Oh no. There's a dawning realization that he probably should have had this conversation with her a lot sooner. But she's been so nice, there just wasn't room to broach the subject. Especially because...

"Wait."

"You can't see me."

Lucky that she can't witness his Dying Inside^TM face.

"I'm sorry. I've been just...assuming. One of my best friends in the world doesn't even have eyes but they perceive everything..."

Oh. Oh. This makes several things click into place.

"No, I'm sorry, I've been assuming you knew. I have eyes, but I've been blind since I was very young. My perception is made up of my remaining senses, though I mostly navigate by sound."

And to give an example, she indicates her cane, and then returns it to how it taps alongside her steps, a steady and near constant accompaniment. It's practically invisible, if you aren't listening for it, falling into the backdrop of sound that most people filter out of conscious thought.

"I've gone and made this so awkward...I'm truly sorry."

He hadn't even thought to question the cane. Or really anything else. He knew it was important to her but that was all.

Wayne is distressed.

He's also fairly quick on the uptake at least, and he reaches to lightly touch her arm so that she knows that he's right there in front of her before carefully laying his fingers against the back of her hand, that she might feel how comparatively cool and smooth he is where humans would be soft, textured and warm.

"Here, uh, if this helps any..."

"Oh my."

It's an honest response, and her touch is light, cautious. Carefully moving, until his hand is in hers. It isn't shocking that he's not human - there's enough people like that on this ship - it's just the difference there between the two of them.

"I had no clue at all."

Wayne has been very aware from the outset that he is very much nonhuman. The only resemblance is external and even then, that's kind of a stretch.

"I think we both went about this kind of backwards, huh?" Seems like sort of vital information that they both kinda took for granted.

He leaves his hand in hers so that she could build a better idea of it in her mind. He wonders if he should maybe describe himself, or let her touch his face too. How is this supposed to work?

"To be fair to the both of us, that isn't really information that comes up while relaxing in a hot tub."

She doesn't blame him, at least. It's silly, now that she thinks about it, but it's an interesting contrast between their hands - he's cool enough that it's refreshing, almost soft, and she wonders how she feels in exchange.

He chuckles a little because, yeah, there wasn't really a reason for any of it to come up before, when they were just chatting and generally being friendly.

Where his hands are cool and smooth and oddly malleable under a firmer touch, hers are warm and soft and interesting, the textures of her fingers subtle but noticeable. He lifts her hands just to be able to look a little closer, to see the fine hairs and little patterns of follicles, nails that he only known very few creatures to have, before he'd arrived here.

"Well, I guess now is the time to ask questions," he suggests, though she might note a hint of nerves with it. Time to go back to being a curiosity.

"Yes. So if you have any for me, please do ask - I won't mind, if they come from you."

That nervousness was heard, understood, and addressed.

"And I'm sorry again if any of my questions were rude - being on an entirely different page from you doesn't go and excuse that."

There's a moment of pause, then a soft smile that he sort of hopes gets conveyed in his voice now that he knows the broader picture.

He shakes his head on reflex at the apology. "Nah, you didn't do anything wrong. I'm mostly just grateful knowing it now instead of like, someone saying something about it later and assuming I was doing it on purpose." He's done plenty of dumb things in his life, hurting his friends' feelings absolutely should not be one of them. "But uh. Heh. I guess you kinda get why I can't swim, now."

She nods, since she knows he can see it. "I suppose it's also a little hard for me to grasp since I swim quite frequently myself. In the pool, it's simple - there's boundaries on the edge, and no need for that rope I spoke of."

A little pause, and she decides to give him another piece - not a secret, just a good memory. "I learned when I was young, like that. It was how we made sure I didn't drift away, but that I also wasn't deprived of getting to learn."

"That's really smart though. Make sure you can't end up too far and not able to find your way back." That's such a cute mental image, too, a tiny Helena swimming in circles held in place by a rope. He's more relaxed now, just with the easy exchange of nicer thoughts. Perhaps he might have liked to visit her in one of her memories, if he weren't so caught up in trying to recover from some of what he'd already been through.

He shifts some in place, and carefully moves his hands to the backs of hers, bringing them up and very lightly pressing her palms against his cheeks, letting her fingers fan outwards so that she can follow the feeling up the sides of his head arching up and out.

"Here. You're probably gonna hear about it one way or another, if you haven't already, so...remember when I said my head wasn't exactly like anyone else's here? This is what I meant."

Her expression is wide eyed curiosity, letting him move her hands, and then following the shape, still gentle with her touch. And then it becomes more clear as she goes on tip toes, and her smile grows bigger as she pulls her hands back.

"So you're..."

Taking his hand again, she lightly draws a crescent moon on his palm to indicate what her mental idea is.

"You're like what I was told the moon is."

It's a ticklish sensation where her fingers trace the shape, and he has to resist rubbing the spot to ward it off. "Exactly."

He takes a breath, just holding her hands clasped between his own and looking down at the curious contrast of his bright yellow on her light peachy pink. "Come to think of it, I don't even know if you have an idea of what yellow looks like, if you haven't seen it since you were small. So now you have two descriptors for me I guess."

"I know colors as a concept. Things that are supposed to be that color. Violets are purple, grass is green, daffodils are yellow. Yellow I've heard is bright, a little sharp, a stronger color than others. But I like to also associate them with other things, where I can, to at least give the world more description."

She knows what she's been told, and she trusts that no one would maliciously mislead her on that.

"Now yellow will also be linked to you."

It's such a nice thought. He knows he stands out at the best of times, but now it's a positive thing at least for one person.

"I think I get it. Pinks are what I remember about the horizon back home. Greens are vegetables and friends. Your color reminds me of the sand I used to build castles on when I needed to hang out and mope for a while. It's a soft thing, kinda comforting."

"If it's a good memory, then I'm happy to be a reminder of it."

Pinks for the sky. An interesting thought - she usually associates it with happiness as a feeling, but everyone has different links, and wherever Wayne comes from, if it helped create someone like him, then it must be a fascinating place.

There's a word for it that he's trying to remember...

"Bittersweet," he says thoughtfully after a minute. "I'd die, and have to go have a minute to cool off down on the beach where the ocean was red and the sand was perfect for building with. It was nicer than being out in the world for a little while."

"...So the whole concept of coming back after you die isn't so strange to you? Like what happens here?"

There's an interesting idea behind what he's said to her, a private amusement about her reminding him of this afterlife. But to confess it would be exposing too much, an accidental oversharing when it wasn't needed. Instead, she'll stay in the safe waters.

Ah, something that's been niggling at his mind since he first learned that they could and likely would die here, every once in a while.

"I don't know if it's the same way here that it was at home. There's a worry that if I do die here, will I go back to my own afterlife and then simply disappear from here altogether and end up back home, or will I be stuck in the void as the powers that be try to decide where I should be going?" He misses his own afterlife and no mistake, but he would perhaps like to warn the people that he's met here that he's leaving before that happens in case it did mean he would be leaving.

Unless, of course, she knows more on the subject than he does and he's just needlessly spinning his wheels.

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