2019-11-12: The Return of Granny

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  • Log: The Return of Granny
  • Cast: Yue Rohay, Shalune Amira
  • Where: Meria Boule
  • Date: 12th November 2019
  • Summary: Yue, the Minder, and Shalune meet each other in Meria Boule when... a certain dreadnought returns to make their lives complicated.


<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

Well, Yue got released from prison.

It turns out that it wasn't terribly hard, between Marivel pulling her clout and Acacia being a local and *snigger* Yue being her prisoner. The poor reporter might have a time of having to convince people it's not /like/ that... (but it's kinda like that? It's complicated). But at the very least, right /now/...

Yue gets to have a bit of a break as she sits on a bench at the square, with the Minder absent-mindedly eating on a piece of candy next to her. It feels like it's been forever since she's been able to just relax and sit and take the scenery in and not...

...

...

Oh no, something's about to happen, isn't it?

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Technically speaking, it isn't one thing that happens, it's two.

The first is that a Veruni machine lumbers into sight, wandering casually down the main strip of Meria Boule. Twelve feet tall and shaped like a friend, and carrying a certain pink-haired alchemist on her back, Big Shal is evidently getting into the festival spirit - there's a large flower garland around the golem's neck, and an oversize party hat is adding about another foot of height on top.

Shalune's a little busy dipping into a paper bag of carnival food, apparently celebrating being back on Filgaia by eating it piece by piece - though she's looking bright-eyed and upbeat, apparently very ready to clamber on down and start looking around the festival. "Mmf!" she calls as she waves to the pair, mouth full.


The second is that a Veruni woman lumbers into sight, wandering casually up the main strip of Meria Boule. Five feet tall with a knapsack slung over one shoulder and hunched over a walking stick, the elderly figure looks around the festival with a sharp gaze, muttering something to herself under her breath. She's blended in enough that Shalune doesn't even notice the way she's beelining for Big Shal until the golem nudges the mechanic--

--at which point she makes a strangled noise and starts coughing and choking on her food. "G-gh--" she tries, swallows, and tries again: "Granny?!"

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

The Minder blinks a few times as she nearly chews on her hard candy, jumping up to her feet as she points agog. "It's Big Shal! CR-S01! What is she doing here--" A pause. "Oh. That's why, isn't it?"

Yue raises herself up off the bench as well as she slips closer towards Big Shal, chuckling as she pats at her side and says, "Big Shal. You have taken in rather well to the festivities--"

A pause, as Shalune starts choking and calls out 'Granny?!'

Yue stares for a veeeeery long time.

The Minder blinks a few times, confused. "Who?"

Yue blurts out, "My cell disappearing into the aether was definitively -not- my fault!"

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Big Shal is immune to surprise, and is the first one to turn and offer the Minder a slow but friendly wave and then a gentle and healing thumbs up. Headpats are surely not far behind, and the golem seems to have something of an affinity for the Veruni girl. The reason why might not be terribly obvious, but then with slow and deliberate movements Big Shal opens a compartment on her torso and extracts... a particularly large witch's hat to replace the one on her head.

Ah. Minder's suit looks kind of like a mini-Shal.

"Granny?!" yelps Shalune again as she half-slides, half-falls off of the golem's gantry. It takes her a moment to find her feet in her confusion, stumbling several paces forwards, and then she's rushed up to the old woman's side to-- not cling onto her, for fear of bowling her right over. Instead, the mechanic helicopters madly around her, eyes still saucers. "Are you okay?! What are you doing here? You're gonna get sick!"

"Oh, don't fuss so damn much," Granny fires back, bopping Shalune lightly in the shins with the end of her walking stick. "You'd think I'd up and died or something." ('Yeah, kinda!' Shalune shoots back, but she's ignored with another bonk.) "A bit of a walk ain't gonna kill me on a sunny day like this. Bakery girl knows her manners, let me have a sit down."

The Veruni elder stares over at Yue for a long moment. "A likely story. I bet you found a way to manage it, just to give the higher-ups a runaround. Do you have any idea how many forms and witness statements I had to sign? You're just lucky no-one can be bothered to haul someone like me in."

She sizes Yue up for a moment, then Shalune watches agog as Granny honest-to-god smiles at the Minder. "Hello, dear. It's been too long since we've had the chance to meet, hasn't it? Yue must keep sneaking off whenever she comes to see me."

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

There might be a tiny part of Yue that's still jealous that Big Shal's started to favour the Minder more than her, despite being her lifelong companion...!! ... but just a tiny one, because she's realy happy her lifelong companion is treating her well in a tough time like this.

The Minder blinks, as she gasps and exclaims, "I--I earned enough Black Mage Points to get a new hat, Big Shal?? Thank you!"

Yue watches with big shock, however, as the Veruni elder lectures back at Shalune and then clubs her on the shins and immediately is on the ready to get clubbed herself.

"... ... do you truly believe I would hatch up such a harebrained escape plan?" Yue slumps, cucco feather tilting downwards in her mouth. "But I imagine... about four." A pause. "And eleven supplemental ones."

A longer pause. "Speaking of, I chanced upon Shalune and the stories she had for me surprised me. You never told me of her!"

The Minder is putting her new hat on (and kind of disappears inside of it) as Granny speaks to her. "Y-yeah... I see you visit CR-S01's cell a lot." Does she not quite understand the relationship between Granny and Yue yet?

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

It's alright, because right as Minder disappears under the hat, Big Shal turns to offer Yue a pat on the head as well. It doesn't offer her anything so light as a thumbs up - but instead gazes at her for a long beat, something meaningful perhaps tucked away in the golem's gaze.

Then Granny ruins the moment with a sigh. "Course you would. Just to see if it were possible, I'd bet. Girl, step back a little so I can rest these bones," she adds to Shalune, slipping past the mechanic to take a seat on the nearby bench. "Anyway, the answer is none, of course. As if I'm going to let a couple of pushy soldiers order an old bat like me around. But it meant my junkyard was a mess of noise for far too long as people searched for you."

Shalune looks agog at that, then clamps her mouth shut. "Well, sorry for being worried about you," she whines under her breath, then throws her hands up. "--I chanced upon Miss Yue, too! You never told me Big Shal was-- that she had a prior owner! Or that you still had family! Kinda!" she adds as she glances to Yue, still not entirely sure of their relationship herself - but secure enough in that feeling for a hand to stray to her neck and the cord that lies around it, two symbols laid together under her coat.

"Well, how was I supposed to know that you two would ever meet? Here I thought the three of us were just an old woman, a long-suffering friend, and an overactive nuisance," Granny points out, unflappable as ever. She doesn't look towards Minder, but fixes Yue with a similar look to the golem, obviously being cagey for Yue's sake. "Besides, we ain't got that much daylight to burn. Aren't you going to help this old woman around a festival?"

That last part is to Shalune, who briefly cycles though serious confusion into deep skepticism and on to wisely keeping her first reply to herself in case she gets bopped again. "... uh--... well... I mean sure, but..." she tries instead, still deeply uncertain if this is Okay.

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

Yue catches the glimpse from Big Shal for a longer moment, then simply lowers her head gently so that she can be more fully head-patted; humbled, she murmurs, "Wherever would I be without you, Big Shal? You are too wise..." because.

Well, of course they're having a conversation on some other level than speech.

She does watch as Shalune and Granny banter for a moment, and then smiles ever so tiredly as she remarks, "... I am rather glad you found a bundle of energy to burst into your junkyard in these last few years."

She raises her eyebrows as she-- pauses, and then looks behind them to say, "Ah--"

The Minder flanks the Granny as well as she pouts and says, "That's right. When are you going to take me through the festival?"

"Um--"

"You can take your girlfriend if you want," the Minder absolutely outs her. Gwah!

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

"I bet she wouldn't have managed without me," Shalune grumbles conspiratorially back at Yue. "She'd still be gettin' mad at daytime shows and spending all her time cooped up and probably throwing cans at dropships--" She's getting better at dodging the swings of the cane, at least - but a cough from the old woman draws her up short in record time, leaving her biting hard at her lip.

"... is it really okay for you to be here?" whispers Shalune after the Veruni woman has pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her mouth. Not very subtly, the mechanic looks at Minder, comparing the size and weight of the suit against Granny's form only to wince to herself. She doesn't need to be familiar with the technology to realize there's no way someone of her mentor's age is going to get away with it.

For once, Granny isn't ready to immediately bite back; instead, she looks between all three of them, shaking her head to herself. "Don't be daft. I'm fine enough," she insists after a long pause, full of confidence or perhaps bravado. "Let an old woman have some time with the people she knows. Especially after you all buggered off to who knows where and left me here. I can take a day. I've got a ride home, anyways."

Shalune tries to keep the image of Granny flying a Gear out of her head. Fortunately, there's a distraction, and she shuffles around to Minder's side as the girl makes that last suggestion. "... think we should leave them alone?" she mumbles openly, barely trying to hide it. "Festivals are for that sort of thing, right? I saw a Love Tunnel over on the other side near the river--"

"Not a chance," Granny's voice cuts in, then she looks to the Minder with another smile. "We're going around the place together. If we split up like that, I can't grill the hell out of her as to whether she's been looking after you right. And if there's a /girlfriend/ involved, well, it's just my duty to see if she measures up, isn't it?"

... ... somewhere, Acacia feels like she's just gained another person liable to yank her out her window by the collar, only this time in a much different tone.

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

Yue gets reminded of something mid-rant of Shalune's, her cucco feather lilting upwards. "What kind of... shows did she watch in front of you, exactly?" A pause. "That must be rather peculiar, seeing television, is it not?"

A pause, as she starts imagining Shalune trying to disassemble Granny's CRT after being told that gremlins run the tubes inside of it.

The Minder furrows her brow under her helmet, obtaining a >:) face as she exclaims, "I will look after Granny! It's only natural for me to do so, after all," and not because she treats her extremely nicely or anything.

Shalune tries to angle to get her to separate and Granny instead turns the grill on to high, as Yue looks taken aback as she exclaims, "She is not my girlfriend!"

"Not for lack of trying or anything," the Minder mumbles.

Yue sags again as she stares towards Granny in turn. "... after all of this time I thought I had grown adult enough for you to stop terrifying the living daylights out of my dates. Whatever happened to the last one?" A pause. "'Container Accident', as I recall."

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

In the end, Shalune does rather like Yue, and the smile she levels at the Veruni convict is an earnest one as she lights up. "Oh, yeah! I was super surprised at first, but then I found a busted up one in the junkyard and started taking it apart," she admits sheepishly, rubbing at the back of her head. "I never quite figured out how the images get transmitted so quickly, but I could at least figure it out roughly how it worked. Shame you'd need some kinda booster to get it much further than Elru."

That reminds her of something - and she pulls out the Hyadean tablet she's still carrying around, realizing this might be the first and only time to get all of them together in one picture. "Oh oh! Everyone crowd around!" she calls, maybe even expecting it to work. ... well, she can just feather the button instead.

So she gets a shot of Minder next to Granny, grinning brightly as she does so. "See, those are the sort of manners I like to see," the old woman nods to herself in satisfaction, then favours Minder with a smile. "Thank you, dear. I've never been out this far, so it'll be a surprise for both of us, won't it? This place feels a lot nicer than some, that's for sure."

And Shalune gets a kind of blurry shot as she tracks the plate across, managing just about to get Yue in the frame. "What's wrong if she is?" she wonders in honest confusion. "I mean, that's deserves a chance to take it easy and look around with her, right? Oh, there's congratulations, too-- and does this mean I've got some kinda mom-in-law coming? ... this family's kinda convoluted," she snorts.Finally, she gives up, and just dances backwards until she can manage to fit Big Shal in the shot, the golem giving an obliging thumbs up. Not caring that the camera's on her, Granny looks over. "Sure she ain't. You can't keep a poker face on around me, you know," she cackles. "I ain't gonna scare her. Much. At least, not if she's worth it."