deercountry | The New Person

Entry tags:

echo: kaito

The New Person

Who: Echo + Pandora House & Friends
What: Meeting or reintroducing yourself to the new housemate.
When: Arrival time in April.
Where: In and around the Pandora Hearts house.

Content Warnings: Allusions to abusive conditions

Oz just happened to find Echo on the boardwalk after she finally made it to shore and got her bearings. She followed him home! ...Well, maybe it was more like he dragged her. Although "dragging" would imply she hadn't willingly grabbed his hand...

ANYWAY, regardless of semantics, he's taken her to the house the people from his world (and then some) inhabit. Oz will be handling the initial settling in, making her pick a room that's more than a storage closet with a place to sleep, etc.

For everyone else, there's a good chance Oz proceeded to tell you Eko-chan was here! Or maybe you saw her arriving or are just seeing her for the first time around the house. And Echo will definitely be around the house, as interesting as it is. At some point, you could find her just about everywhere she can reasonably get to. Echo won't intrude on some's personal room without invitation, and she probably wouldn't spend too much time in any of the stranger places like the basement, because she spent enough time in Vincent's room already, thank you. She has a habit of just quietly observing from one out-of-the-way spot with a good view and not showing much emotion. Unless you're very perceptive, you may not even spot her at first. She does need to do things like go from place to place and eat, so you can certainly find her moving about, as well. Echo could also be found in her room.

Since I'm still learning about the house, I'm going to trust you guys with the exact settings this time if that's okay.

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Xerxes Break did not descend into the thick of things, in regards to welcoming Echo to the house. His heart skipped a couple beats the second he saw her, honestly. But Oz knows damn well what happened to his uncle, was present at the time in fact, and if he's bringing this girl into the house and sparkling so hard about it that it may as well be his birthday, Break will trust that the weirdness going on with her before is no longer an issue. If that's the case, Break is pleased about her arrival, even. Echo helped him during a crucial moment indeed in the past that he's certain saw her punished, and he doesn't even want to imagine the nonsense she had to put up with in such close proximity to the drain rat.

Still, he holds back until he's got his head on straight about it, and lets the kids be the ones to introduce her to the overall weirdness of the house.

Perhaps it's better that way. The Mad Hatter, Pandora's Strongest, had a certain reputation, and a solid half a year in Trench has led Break away from it. Echo will get a much better hint of the person she can expect, the person Break is becoming, when she slides into the kitchen some while on. It's his domain more than anyone else's in the house, and she'll find the Rainsworth dukedom's vicious guardian in casual dress with his shirt sleeves rolled up as he handles the baking of bread for the day. His omni sits in the mess on the table, quietly playing a modern song he's taken a shine to, and his ever-present omen -- a huge black borzoi -- is sprawled on the tile within sight of the door, chewing happily on a pineapple.

The necklace visible past his open collar, a dark unicorn on a shield, is a blatantly obvious tribute to Sharon. Definitely Xerxes Break, without a doubt. The wine-colored handprint wrapped around one forearm like a birthmark, underneath a red bracelet that matches the earrings twinkling past his somewhat shaggier hair in a stark contrast to his typically purple everything, can be Echo's first indication that there are interesting new things to discover here. You know, if the fact that the Mad Hatter is baking wasn't already weird enough.

"Miss Echo," he says mildly when he spots her, tone neutral. His omen likewise tilts an ear in her direction, but otherwise doesn't disengage from his pineapple. "You're settling in well, I hope?"

Oz had mentioned very early on that Break was here, and Echo hadn't been sure how to feel about that on her part. They'd had limited interactions before now and most of what she'd heard about him otherwise came from Vincent scheming aloud. It wasn't as though she bore any ill will toward him; she had known very well he could have alerted all of Pandora that she was Zwei and was grateful he'd kept silent. Her reservations likely were stemming from the general air of adversity that had always been between them in their previous circumstances.

And, well, just because he's Break.

Echo knew she was going to encounter him at some point, and while finding him in the kitchen isn't in and of itself particularly surprising, the tableau definitely stands out to her. The garb, the strange music, the fact that he's the one preparing the food is all incredibly absurd. And that is, of course, the most accurate description of Xerxes Break as far as she's concerned. So no, she's really not surprised at all by any of this even if she doesn't understand a single bit of it. If she's lucky, maybe one or two things can be answered satisfactorily.

She stops where she is and hesitates for a second before giving him a polite bow. "Break-sama." From the outside, it seems like almost nothing has changed about her. Her clothes, her monotonous tone, her muffled emotions—everything is the same. "I...believe I am, yes."

Honestly, Echo still isn't sure what to do with herself as literally everything about this was so unexpected, but from what she can tell she's doing well. Even if she's still trying to figure out just about everything. On that note, being a part of conversations directed at her is one of those things. From what she's seen other people do, they usually reciprocate a comment being made about their current condition. That why she follows up her answer with "You seem...occupied."

There's no concern in her voice, no attempt to use that as an excuse to leave. It's purely stated as an observation.

"None of that," Break says immediately, flapping a hand to wave away the honorifics. "In this place, all of us are simply here."

His tone isn't sharp or unkind. He, too, defaults to being overly formal at first, and sometimes struggles to figure out how to address those who don't want any honorifics at all. Saying names without some sort of qualifier is something for those he's especially close to, after all, and even then only in certain moments. It won't vex him if she's insistent on calling him something other than his name alone, but he certainly doesn't need that level of respect when it's not as though he ever outranked her.

"Handling the cooking here is the primary duty I've chosen for myself," he adds, by way of explanation. "It's much too troublesome for so many of us to go out and barter for every meal, you know?"

In Echo's mind, the honorifics just come with the individual, so she doesn't see what about that changes their circumstances. It's certainly not a requirement to her to use them, she's just used to doing so for most people. But she called him Break-sama before, so for the time being, that's what it is.

"I see." She hadn't had a chance to ask yet, but she'll never complain about getting information. "It is certainly more efficient to minimize transactions to a single individual for items with diverse functions." As in, just one person buying ingredients, but it's always better to specify, right?

Considering everything he said, however, she quickly adds, "You selected your own duty?"

"I did," Break agrees. He glances up at her, giving one of the calculating looks she's more familiar with. He certainly doesn't know the entirety of Echo's story, how she came to be stuck with the Drain Rat -- on the one hand, her position would have been a great way to keep a Baskerville at his beck and call, but on the other, he treated her like garbage. But that alone, and the speed with which she asks it, makes him think that the answer to her simple question might actually be one of those things that informs whatever life she decides to make for herself here.

Bereft of the other Baskervilles, and free of Vincent Nightray.

"Everyone in the household has done such. Nothing that dictated our stories at home has carried over into this place, you know? Here, Oz needn't worry about whatever lies Jack is slinging about. The pale Alice is no longer the Will of the Abyss, and so on." He shrugs elegantly, and echoes something Sharon said to him at the awful party that feels like it was so, so long ago, now. "Whatever we make of this new life...it's up to us, really."

Edited (forgot an icon) 2022-04-25 02:12 (UTC)

By instinct, his gaze makes her feel a bit on edge. From what she's come to understand about this situation, she's fairly certain she doesn't need to worry about him, but she can't rule out the possibility of danger even without Vincent pitted against him.

In spite of this, his explanation clearly leads to some serious contemplation. "Hm," is all she gets out for a good, long while. She already knew Oz was free of Jack, and the Alice and the Will of the Abyss comment is definitely on her Get This Answered list, but the prospect of figuring out what to actually make of her existence herself is in the forefront of her mind.

Her eyes begin slowly drifting to Baltus and different parts of the kitchen as she thinks. It's a very difficult concept for her. So much had been predetermined for her before, and the few times she acted on her own were typically within the moment. And once she accepted herself as a person, she did so knowing she was about to die. There was no reason to even speculate about something like this before.

Finally, she softly responds "It must not be easy in a place as strange as this." Not that her comment is affected by the fact that she's just been taking in a kitchen with unfamiliar aspects, the Omni and its weird sounds, the pineapple dog thing, and Break.

There is no need to sit and stare at her while she contemplates all this, so Break simply keeps going with his breadmaking, his hands moving deftly as he kneads. It's his omen who pays Echo real attention during this quiet interlude. However, despite the fact that the dog is a spectral shadow thing with glowing white eyes and an awful lot of teeth wrapped around that pineapple, Baltus has much less of a dangerous atmosphere around him than Break does. Of course Baltus will keep an eye on her; he knows what Break knows. But despite not being an actual dog at all, even outside of being an omen -- Baltus is a churchyard grim -- it suits him to be perceived as such. Break can be the cunning schemer. Baltus is simply here to help.

Or to troll the ever-loving shit out of Break, should the opportunity present itself.

When she finally does speak up again, Break glances at her -- and makes a face, having missed the point entirely. He isn't fully aware that to Echo, simply living a life is strange, despite the fact that the omni and other such things have certainly thrown him for a loop, too. He's been here too long, and his thoughts go instead to all the obnoxious psychological trials and grisly ways to die that Trench presents on a daily basis.

"It's not so terrible as it could be," he says, grudgingly. He sounds as though he's admitting something annoying. "You'll find that, in an overwhelming majority, the Sleepers -- those like us -- are terribly eager to help one another. If they're not reaching out to complete strangers, they're building safehouses to flock to in the event of...I don't know, whatever relevant terrible thing."

And it's contagious, too. Break has felt it his own duty to pay all those early kindnesses forward now that he's settled in, and he's been so preoccupied with turning his own house into a safe place for his kids and favorites that the house itself has caught on.

"So it is a group utilizing survival skills to ensure minimum losses." She sounds as interested as she can while saying this, nodding slightly. Information is one of the most precious things as far as she's concerned, and the more she has on each individual experience, the better.

She still hasn't returned her gaze to Break. Her lingering unease around him makes it hard for her to focus, and Echo feels as though concentrating on her current line of thought should be her priority. Not having to take in one of his stares seems like a good tactic to ensure that she can. And really, Baltus is curious enough to her that it's not too hard to focus on something else.

"Then, the options for what one can make of their existence would have to fit within the limitations of what is required within the society's needs. In other words, it is still bound just to what is necessary..."

She frowns a bit. This was starting to sound a bit more like her previous existence, even though she knows she has far more freedom now than she ever could have imagined. Oz had been saying things to her about possibly taking other things into account here though, and while she still hasn't grasped what most of those are or why she should, the potential for them to be cut out so quickly is a bit disappointing.

What.

"...ehhhhhhhhhhhh, however have you come to such a dismal conclusion...? You could go off and become a professional tap dancer if it suited you."

Break suggests this random career choice in particular mostly because he thinks it would irritate Vincent, which pleases him.

"It's only that -- Sleepers tend to be the heroic sort, so you'll find that sort of impulse in a great many of us." He thunks his bread dough into a bowl to rise and pats his hands off. "We're far from the only ones here who have had to fight some stupid megalomaniac or three to prevent the whole world from breaking apart, you know?"

She finally looks back at him if only to give him an annoyed glare for that tap dancer comment. She's just trying to use logic here! That...was decisively not logical. She probably would have vocalized her complaint had he not continued.

Those later comments remind her about just how much she still doesn't know about the world she left. Echo hadn't even been able to properly focus on the real problem for long and she has no idea what happened, but given her lack of success in questioning Oz she's pretty sure Xerxes Break is not going to prove to be an easy font of knowledge. It's probably best to stick to the topics at hand, or at least things that had been mentioned.

"Understood." At least, probably as much as she's going to be able to right now. After a pause, she adds "What did your previous comment concerning the Will of the Abyss mean?"

"I meant exactly what I said. Both of the Alices are here. They are twins. The paler of the two was once the vessel in which the powers of the Core of the Abyss itself resided. The dark one, the one you know, was born in the Abyss alongside her, and set loose."

Set loose might be the best way possible to describe that Alice in particular making a decision to do anything at all and then doing it. This vibe is somewhat alleviated when Oz or someone else she deigns to listen to from time to time is around, but Break has noticed it never leaves entirely.

"In this place, they're both simply young ladies, learning what pleases them. And so, sometimes I find myself with the girl who was once the tool half the players in our world wanted to get their hands on helping me to tidy up the kitchen, you know?"

From her Baskerville adjacency, Echo is fairly aware of the oddities of the Abyss. While this was new information to her, she finds it pretty easy to accept as fact even if she doesn't totally grasp the details. And from her own experience with Alice she would agree that's definitely the best phrasing for her.

"Because they are choosing their own duties, yes..." That's been a common theme not only in her conversation with Break just now, but in things she's heard in general since she got here. "Lacking the bonds from our previous lives, it does not sound like an easy thing to do if I am to be honest."

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The New Person

Kitchen times are go

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