RP [CAIN thing] Ambushed! in the cafeteria at an undisclosed location somewhere in New England.

muto mentem

muto mentem

Active member
Luca Langlois had a running theory that very few people actually liked lunch. Breakfast was great because it was the first meal after you stopped trying to sleep. Dinner was great because you ate it around the time you started flagging; you could use it to take a short break and change gears for the night shift. Lunch was the meal everyone would skip if they could. Which made it the ideal meal for socializing.

That was why, on a very brisk Friday, at approximately 11:40 AM, Luca Langlois was standing outside the door to the cafeteria, attempting to psych herself up.

Good evening, Ms. Knight! I’ve got some questions for you. She mimed clicking her new tape recorder on. Thought for a moment. Then grimaced. Click.

“Sounds like I’m about to start debriefing her. She’ll hate that. Probably. Try again.”

Oh, hi, Adrianna! How’s it going? Spoken to your brother, lately? I was just thinking about him–

“--Ew, no. What?” Click.

Wow! Fancy meeting you here! How’s your [injured body part; perform visual inspection on site]? Great! Thanks! While I have you, can I ask you some other questions? Click.

“God. Kill me.” Planning this sort of thing was always so much harder than actually executing it. And, well, she had time, but not that much time. She’d arrived late, to make sure Adrianna was already in there, eating, so that she couldn’t avoid her as easily. But it only took so long to eat, and you didn’t linger on lunch; you ate it fast, to get it over with.

Probably a good mindset to adopt, here. Luca braced herself, and pushed through the doors.

“Hey! Ms. Knight!” She slammed down into the chair opposite Adrianna, without bothering to grab a tray. “How’s it going? Nine doing okay?”
 
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It was a miracle that Luca had managed to find Adrianna in the time following their return from Outpost 34. When they'd first returned, things were trending in a positive direction, with most of a plan of their enemies foiled and one of the Virtues returned to CAIN custody. Additionally, they'd recruited several people who'd been arrayed against them- her long-lost brother, whom everyone presumed dead, included. All in all, it was cause for celebration, until news came in from Fireteam Deva.

Heather's death hit Adrianna hard. She all but vanished from life about campus, only seen rarely at meal times or training, opting to spend most of her time away from everyone else. Her brother was still in processing, and Nathan was at a separate campus. Her only point of contact was through her phone, and it often felt like too much effort. She spent most of her time on autopilot, quiet and avoidant of most, only doing what was necessary as she attempted to process what had actually happened.

It was in one of these few moments of public appearance that Luca found her. Her approach was so sudden and unpredicted that she caught Adrianna by surprise. "Oh. Um, hello, Luca. I'm... fine." It was a clear lie, and she kept her gaze down, to avoid looking at the other woman. "He's still in processing. Haven't had time to check in. I think he's okay, though. Thank you for the help, so that I could text him." It was genuine, but her voice was flat, lacking enthusiasm. She took a moment to collect herself, sighed a moment, and spoke once more. "Did... did you need something?"
 
Oh. This was very clearly a bad time. For a moment, Luca hesitated, passing the tape recorder back and forth between her hands. Then she barreled onward.

"Not really!" She smiled, brightly, trying her best to come across as genuinely cheerful. "I had a whole speech prepared about, like, wanting to create a series of interviews with highly motivated exorcists as part of a plan to improve TEMERITY's training regimen, but, like... That was kind of nonsense. I just wanted to talk, really." The recording device slid into a pocket on her coat, unclicked. Which was a shame; it was nice to have records. But it'd mostly been a prop anyway.

"There aren't a lot of exorcists around who have, um... Our particular set of life experiences. Most of this taskforce was recruited some time in the last few years. Some of them in the last few months. And Rein is always saying I should try to connect with people more. And you look, um... Kind of like you could maybe use someone to talk to? And I don't know if we're friends, but I'm at least, like... Here, I guess! So it seemed like it might be a good idea to try to get to know you better, before, you know, Ophelia manages to have the taskforce is dissolved, or we accomplish our objectives, or whatever."

That hadn't really been the plan, but Adrianna didn't look like she needed to hear about anyone else's problems right now. Maybe that was a copout, but, hey--that didn't make it any less true.
 
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The slightest hint of a frown found its way to Adrianna's face at the thought of task force dissolution, a far cry from her usual neutrality. Why she would consider something so drastic, the exorcist didn't know. They were doing good work in Penance, and had a lot of actionable intel.

It, of course, didn't help that collectively, this was the closest she'd had to a family ever. Especially in the light of what she'd learned about Irving, Hemingway, and IX.

"I... Right."

Needing someone to talk to wasn't wrong, per se. As a matter of fact, Adrianna very much wanted to talk to someone, badly. The issue was, it wasn't Luca she wanted to talk to. It was Nathan. She needed to know what had happened on that hunt, what went wrong, what happened to her, everything. Even if it tore her to pieces, knowing was better than not. She wanted to talk to Heather, bring her back, sit down and really talk to her, about everything. She wanted to tell her... Well, she wasn't sure about that part yet. But there was something there, something that needed to be said that hadn't, that might not ever be said.

"Yeah. Go ahead."
 
Was this a bad time?

Was there going to be, like... A good time?

Luca leaned back, stretching her hands out in front of her and extending her spine, and then settled back into a slight hunch, propping herself up on the table with her elbows.

"What was growing up in the whole, like, super-child-soldier program side of CAIN like? I know what it was like growing up in TEMERITY, and about the general details of the training package, but I don't think I ever saw an account from someone who actually lived through it."
 
A shrug was offered in response. In truth, it was hard to say what it was like, because it was all Adrianna knew. How can you draw comparisons when you don't have another experience to compare to?

"It was a lot of training. Instruction. I don't- really know how to explain it," she said, dropping eyes to her tray. "They started telling me specifics about Sins when I was... twelve, I think. Everything before that was teaching me about my abilities, and how to be careful with them." With that, she looked down to her hands, cracked with gold, with split-iris eyes.

"I don't think I'm the best to ask. It took a lot longer for me, since they found me very young. Maybe someone else will be able to give you a better comparison."
 
"No, that's exactly why I wanted to ask!" Luca said, clasping her hands together under her chin. She kept her eyes locked on Adrianna's, putting on her best earnest smile. "I--um--remember that conversation we had, in the IRC, the other day? About books. And--knowledge of the outside world! And stuff. I was kind of surprised, what you said, about--you know, real things." She'd been surprised by the directness with which she'd said it--'you are wrong about that'--but to be fair, Luca had been lying.

"And it made me curious. Cuz, like... I, you know, um... The whole 'isolation' thing is kind of a pain, isn't it? Like, it must have been worse for you, but--even if someone goes in--get taken in, rather, at, like, eight, that's still four years before you get to talk to more than a couple of people. Do you think it's really necessary? Or--did you, um... Did they do that, with you?"

It was getting a little hard to keep the pep level up. Luca was tired, not that that was anything new, and talking about These Things felt like wading through quicksand even when it was with Rein, who already knew about most of them. But if Adrianna didn't, like, walk away, or deck her, Luca was going to talk to her about them. She'd decided. It was Important that she manage to tell at least one person, and as willing as Gracie would probably be to listen, it had to be someone who actually stood a chance of understanding.
 
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It took Adrianna a moment to realize what specifically Luca was referring to. The conversation in question- really just a brief exchange between the two, in one of the few brief moments she spent on their internal intranet- had truly been just a few passing comments to her, a moment where she noticed a bit of dishonesty between what were supposed to be members of the same team. It had irked her in the moment, so she corrected it, and then moved on. Adrianna hadn't intended for it to leave a lasting impression, but clearly it had.

She took a moment to respond, moving the food on her tray idly. "As I said, I was recruited when I was very young. My blasphemy manifested very early, so I have been with CAIN most of my life." In fact, it was only recently she'd learned it hadn't been since before birth. "Having learned of my manifestation, Irving and Hemingway came to speak with my mother, and recruited me. Due to the concerns of my age and how active my Whisper was, training started quickly, in order to avoid any undue consequences.

"The focus was largely on discipline and control, when I started. Precognition and insight into others seemed to be my most prominent skills, so they flagged me for field work very early. Part of that was how to work with a team, but most of that training was around when I was fourteen and later. Everything before that was one on one, with minimal distractions." Her voice was matter of fact as she gave this short recounting of a section of her childhood.

She fell silent again, for a moment before shrugging. "They... I don't suppose I minded it, at the time. The isolation, I mean. It's... it was only relative. I have always had someone with me. My instructors also would check in frequently. Apparently, my Whisper is- was- more aggressive than most. Its behavior has changed, since Outpost 34." As far as necessity... it was difficult for Adrianna to comment on that. CAIN had experience training exorcists, more than she would likely ever meet in her whole life. Who was she to judge their techniques, if it gave rise to people like those in Task Force "PENNANCE"?
 
Minimal distractions. Discipline and control. Mhm.

The way Adrianna was talking about it, you'd think she was remembering a somewhat stressful project, or an irritating but competent lab partner. But there was a bit of uncertainty there–Luca could see it, bubbling away beneath the surface. Or maybe there was a lot of uncertainty, actually; maybe it was just buried so deeply that only the very tip of it was poking out. If Luca had wanted to, it would have been very easy to pounce on that tip and start picking away at it.

But I don't want to. Right?

There was a moment or two of silence after Adrianna finished.

“Right.” She tipped back in her chair, hooking her foot around a table leg for balance, and crossed her arms over her stomach. Her eyes slid up to the cafeteria ceiling

“I guess it was sort of the same way, for me? I, uh… I don’t have a lot left of my childhood, either–maybe something in the food–but I remember feeling like the isolation was almost a good thing.” Would Adrianna be able to relate to this? She seemed almost cataclysmically lonely, to Luca, but that was always a little hard to read. Some people were just naturally like that. And some of Adrianna’s friends had died, recently, as well, which probably wasn’t helping things on the loneliness front.

Okay, refocus.

“Like, the educational material I got put a lot of effort into making sure you know you’re responsible for every bad thing that’s ever happened around you, and I think maybe I already sort of felt that way, a bit,” or maybe more than a bit, “so before they started letting me see people on my own terms again, there was this part of me that was like, ‘oh, good, this means I won’t be able to hurt people anymore, yayyyyyy!’ Right? Or, like… I don’t know.” She rocked the chair back and forth on its hind legs a couple of times, before letting it fall back onto all fours.

“Anyway, uh–sorry; this isn’t about me.” Hee hee. ”What was your shadow like, before Outpost 34? Other than aggressive, I mean?”
 
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