oceanicbutterfly | scp r3 joey pcs

[On Monday of Week 4, Joey tracks down Vinea with intent. She's needed to talk to the "demon" for...weeks now, but the last trial and her talk with Watanuki that morning have given her a renewed sense of purpose.]

[Fortunately, finding a woman with long blue-ish hair is a lot less like searching for a needle in a haystack here than in her own home, and it doesn't take long for her to track down Vinea, wherever she is.]

[Vinea turns up in, of all places, the music room. She's examining an otamatone, and doesn't look particularly pleased with whatever she's discovered about it.]

[Oh.]

[Oh god.]

Uh, Vinea? Do you...need a hand?

[Or an excuse to leave?]

--oh!

[Vinea whirls around to face Joey, hiding the alleged instrument behind her back.]

I was just... inspecting the, er... equipment.

[PLEASE SHE WOULD LOVE TO TALK ABOUT LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE]

Right, uh...if you're busy, it's fine, but I wanted to know if you wanted to go take a walk in the garden?

[i.e. as far away from this room as possible]

Yes! Yes, let's walk. In the garden. Just... let me put this away.

[She will try again to figure out these weird new instruments later when everyone is asleep.]

[Right, time to walk quickly away from there. The foyer seems empty enough that the hurried, silent rushing can stop when they're walking from the bottom of the stairs to the door.]

Sooo...weird trial last week, right? Even by our standards.

[Good, good, she's already not thinking about otamatones.]

It was certainly something. Normally, when you've all found the killer, that's been the most dramatic moment.

Everybody had some...really strong opinions about Natsuno. I didn't really expect that, but I guess everyone makes friends in situations like this.

[As she says this, she heads outside and squints into the sun.]

Even Nirrti got hung up a little about how much it would hurt Watanuki.

[Vinea follows, and forms a small cloud above herself. When you have bullshit demon powers, you use bullshit demon powers.]

My lady has always cared about Watanuki-san. I was more surprised to see Anon-san acting so seriously. He'd always been so nonchalant before.

You're friends with who you're friends with. I disagreed, uh, violently, but I understand how he feels. I mean, I got just as mad defending Syaoran, so...

[She sighs.]

That was really kinda pointless, though, right? Syaoran was going to die and become Furniture anyway.

[Blink, blink.] People don't just "become" Furniture.

I don't think it was pointless, though. It's human nature to want to stand up for your friend, isn't it?

Yeah, that's true...well, part of it, anyway.

[They're out in the garden by now. Look at all that nice red droopy Amaranth.]

Vinea, how much do you know about a girl named Karen Minazuki?

[It's not bad. Should have been something blue, though, that's a much better color.]

Only what you pieces have told me. She was here the first week, but then she was executed because of a blue truth that turned out to be false. And apparently, she looked enough like me that several people thought I was her.

Yeah.

Kinda like how the new guy has an uncanny resemblance to Syaoran. Or Valefar looks like Akira. Or all of Nirrti's Furniture looks like people who have died.

[She pauses for a moment, intensely studying a flower well to the left of Vinea's face. Red and blue are striking complementary colors, really. Good gor showing equal opposites while not being as tacky as the red and green that still sometimes flood Joey's mind when she closes her eyes.]

Kinda like how Nirrti looks like Watanuki's dead friend Yuuko.

I hadn't noticed.

[They actually are colors that go well together. ~~There, now we've summarized the eighth episode of Yes! Precure 5.~~ Vinea glances over where Joey is looking, wondering what's so interesting. ...just a flower?

...]

If you think it's part of a pattern, though... I don't know what it is she has in mind with all of that. Even I haven't seen her with any other appearance.

[Don't mind her, trying not to look at the face of the girl she helped kill for no reason.]

That's why this whole game is happening though, right? Watanuki wants Yuuko's face and name to be free, but Yuuko wants to keep playing with Watanuki.

I also...think that she's doing the same thing with you guys. Like, you're a magical being she summoned, right? Does she have a say in what you look like after you're summoned?

Do you suppose that's all there is to it? Nirrti-sama just wanted an incentive for Watanuki-san to play?

[...it seems obvious now that she says it out loud.]

She did provide the vessel I was summoned into.

Yeah. I was afraid of that. I think...

[Joey sighs.]

I think you're possessing the body of a girl I helped kill.

[...sigh.]

I suppose I can't rule it out entirely.

It sucks, though. Like, more than that whole concept sucks! You're nice and helpful and kinda cool in that take-charge way, even if you're working for the "other side" or whatever and frankly I should have asked you to hang out sooner, but...

...I don't know. I don't think Nirrti originally intended you to be a reminder that we're all just as bad as the humans who condemned her, but she sure as heck succeeded at doing that.

...oh. Thank you, Claire-san.

[On the plus side, I have good news about what Karen is like!]

I don't know how much my opinion will mean to you, but I don't think not being able to solve a mystery makes you a bad person. You're just a human.

Well...we did literally have Sherlock Holmes and didn't figure it out.

I just feel like I should have tried harder. Believed in her. Been like...ten percent less of a coward.

[She shakes her head.]

I'm just beating myself up now. And it's not like you're her anyway. This is kind of a pointless tangent, just...if I act weird, I actually do like you, I'm just sorry about the girl whose form you have.

I like you, too, Claire-san, and I don't think you're a coward. I think you're berating yourself for not acting on knowledge you didn't have. If you were anything then like you are now, I'm certain you did the best you could with the information you had. Obviously it wasn't enough, but again, that's just part of being human.

[She pauses.]

...I want to finish that by saying she'd probably forgive you, but we both know I have no idea what she was like.

She seemed like the kind of girl who'd at least accept a sincere apology, I guess.

...

Anyway, I guess I also wanted to talk about Nirrti, but do you want to go to the beach? I made this whole conversation pointlessly depressing.

You had things you needed to say. It's better for you to say them.

And the beach sounds good. Let's go, shall we?

scp r3 joey pcs

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