It's a rather nice day to be out and about, though still difficult for Nanami to get out and about. She's trying, though. There's some kind of moral obligation there, that a magical girl be out and about and 'patrolling'. Difficult as it is, Nanami is doing that, stubbing along with Alcyone at her hip. It's tiring, given how much walking takes out of her, and she sits down on a bench with a huff and a flop, digging her hands into her legs.
"Nanami! Nanami! Look at the harbor!" Alcyone's tail is wagging furiously, even though she knows she is at work. She's trying to distract Nanami, honestly- she knows how downhearted her handler gets about her disabilities, and how little distance she can really walk on her own. The large dog turns and rests her chin on Nanami's hands, which are on the girl's legs. Nanami sighs, and looks at the harbor.
"It is nice, I guess..."
It is a pretty nice day. And thankfully, Ariel isn't planning on going anywhere that she might have to leave Lucky behind. In fact, she doesn't quite have any plans per se, but... She does have quite a bit weighing on her mind.
This might be why she's not quite WALKING Lucky. Sure, she has his leash in her hand, but it's all slack, considering here her other hand his holding to the huge hound's neck.
Letting Lucky choose where to go and going along for the ride works when she has a lot to think about. Like right now, seemingly zoned out, sitting side-saddle on the shaggy hound's bare back. He easily carries her like he's used to it and like she weighs almost nothing.
So it's not so much a patrol in her case, as it is clearing her head, when Lucky pads on by at a lazy pace, stopping just short of the bench. Because there is another big dog right there, and dog must always suddenly stop and pay all attention to other dog, for it is dog law.
Nanami looks up at the big dog. Looks at Ariel. Deep, deep blue eyes narrow as she looks at the two of them. "Were your dog's ancestors horses?" she asks, concern evident on her face. Not for Ariel. No, for Lucky. Nanami knows a thing or two about canine anatomy, and normal canine anatomy does not allow for riding. Alcyone lifts her head and looks at the other dog, letting out a low and friendly 'brrrrf' before sniffing intensely at Ariel. "...Is he magic, too?" Nanami nearly jumps off the bench, giving Alcyone an intense glare before staring at Ariel.
"Magic would explain why your dog doesn't have intense spinal or joint damage," Nanami hazards softly, hand pressed over her racing heart.
For a good moment more, Ariel is absorbed in her own internal world. She doesn't even seem to register that Lucky HAS stopped. At least until he lowers to his haunches. "Huh-whah?" The result has her planting feet on the ground and resting herself against his back, arms lazily around neck, peeking over and around shoulder and neck, as he lifts a paw in a very mild-mannered greeting. Then it dawns on her that he stopped for a reason.
Another dog. --And of course the girl WITH said dog.
"--Oh! Um. No." She replies at first, "He's just always carried me since I was little. ... er." Littler yes. She's already pretty tiny as is.
A low 'wurf', is Lucky's response to Alcyone. Right before she up and asks if Lucky is magical. This catches Ariel off guard, resulting in a sudden bleat. From the girl. Even Lucky tilts his head when called out so brazenly, and it takes his rider a moment to regain composure.
"Wah... Um! Well. That's..."
Her face heats, a slightly darker shade of pale, rather than pink. She gives up, she can't lie. Lying is bad. "Aheh... Heh... Yeah."
The other girl bleated. Nanami raises her eyebrows and pats the bench next to her, offering to share. "Alcyone does kind of the same thing, but-- she basically does more like a cane than something I could ride. She started out normal, though. I'm Nanami, by the way. What's your guys' names?" She digs in her pocket, balancing a treat on Alcyone's nose and holding another one out for Lucky to take.
Alcyone throws the treat in the air and grabs it, tail thudding hard. "We're pretty recently magical, too. It's not new for for you, is it?" Alcyone asks after devouring her treat.
That's right. She bleated. And the hand covering her mouth for a moment, coupled with the sheepish expression says she knows she did it, too. But Ariel doesn't let that stop her from attempting to be a social creature. It's not like it's hard for her. So to begin: Introductions.
"I'm Ariel." She starts with herself, before her arms squeeze a little bit around Lucky's neck in both hug and indication of her big shaggy mount. "This is Lucky."
'Wurf.'
Magical or not, it seems talking is not something he does, unlike Alcyone. He does, however, eat treats like Alcyone; though he goes more for simply gently plucking it from offered fingers, without nipping. Many tailwags occur, as a result. "It's... Not really recent for us, it's kind of complicated. But Lucky and I have been together for a long time, now."
Nanami continues on by giving Lucky ear-scritches. It's clear she's very good at this. "I got partnered with Alcyone about a year ago or so. She helps me walki, because... well, I have a bad leg." Either Ariel hasn't noticed the leg brace, or is too polite to say something. "That's what the weird harness is for. It distributes the force I'm putting down on her shoulders, so I don't hurt her." Alcyone wags her tail happily.
"I get to help! What are your powers, Miss Ariel? Nanami and I have water powers!"
Under normal circumstances, Ariel is a very polite girl; but in this case, having been pulled from her own little internal universe, she's still working on the little things like 'being aware of things'. So the truth of the matter is, she hasn't noticed it until the braces is pointed out.
And that gets a slight tilt of her head, turning as though to better see out of one gold topaz eye rather than both, until her eye focuses a little more properly. "Oh."
It's not an 'oh' of pity, but one of easily understanding the explanation, as she nods. The next question is not meant to be rude, but asked with a simple, and purely childish, curiosity: "When will your leg get better?" It may not be the best question to ask, but she does not know this.
Lucky, on the other hand, rumbles. A low, pleased sound as he dips his head, ears splaying before leaning into the scritching; not minding in the least- no, in fact, relishing it. Ariel however reaches out. But Alcy is an actual service dog, and thus she asks first before petting: "May I?" Not just to Nanami, but to Alcyon directly as well. But powers.
"Mm. Well I don't really fight or anything like that..."
Ariel is young, and gets a pass on that question. "Probably never. My leg has been this way since I was supposed to start walking, and I'm better than I was before I got Alcyone. And if it got better, I don't think many people would put up with Alsie being out there in public with me!" Normally, the question would get Ariel bristled at, but it's the way she asked, and her age, that spares her.
"You can pet her! Usually the no-petting thing is because some service dogs don't have the ability to get back on task after getting pet, but... she's at least as smart as you, I think, and getting smarter all the time." Alsie nods, and more or less solves the question by resting her whole giant head in Ariel's lap. "I wouldn't call what we do fighting... I can just make very high-pressure seawater appear, and I get a fancy coat."
"The coat smells like me," Alsie points out mildly, earning raised eyebrows from Nanami. Huh.
"Oh." That one sounds more dejected. In fact Ariel seems to wilt a little when she hears it is a long term and permanent issue. "I'm sorry." Once again it is not pity that is in her tone, but it is earnest in that way only a child could pull off.
BUT, she does listen, keeping in mind the mental note to not spoil other service dogs- judging from the way she doesn't even flinch at the talkative Newfie's head plopping in her lap, she's more than used to it with Lucky. Lucky, who looks back and forth between Alsie and Nanami, waiting for a seemingly polite moment to sniff Alcyone. And then Nanami as though to verify.
But once given the go ahead, Ariel slowly sifts her fingers through fur, gently running along under jaw and snout. It's more of a delicate caressing than scritching, and she sticks to that.
"Mm. Mm. Ah um. Lucky and I deal with dreams." She answers at length.
Nanami gives Lucky a nod, and Alcyone thuds her tail quite happily at the attention from both parties. "I- well. It's fine. I haven't ever known being able to walk normally, and it's a lot better than being stuck in a chair." Alcyone brrfs an agreement. Again, where someone closer to Nanami's age might get vicious responses, Ariel's age and Lucky's presence mitigate that. It's nowhere approaching an attack, so Nanami lowers her guard.
"What kind of dreams do you deal with? The kind people have while asleep, or the kind that people hold close to their heart and use as determination for the future?"
With utterly zero reason to be cruel or mocking, Ariel simply takes things as they are. Nanami has problems walking. Alcyone is her companion and helps her walk. To her, the situation is as simple as that, and judging from Alcyone's general demeanor-- as she continues to gently stroke along jaw and work her way behind ears, tells her everything she needs to know about the relationship between the two- something similar between herself and Lucky.
"Sleeping." She answers, a bit more sure of herself now. It's not like she needs to hide her magical nature when Alcyone is talking. Her own guard drops as well. But she's not much of a guarded girl as it is. "Though they can be a lot of things-- I mean sometimes people dream about that, so."
Nanami nods, stretching her arms a bit. "I can tell you, my left arm and leg are going to be soooo buff," she says, flexing her fingers. "Since my left leg is my good one, and Alcyone stands on my left when I walk..." There's a brief laugh, and Nanami can feel something uncurl in her chest, something nasty and born of pain and fear, created at the hands of others who mocked her for her disability. The younger girl is... soothing to be around.
"Yeah. I mostly don't remember my dreams, I guess because I'm usually so tired that my brain doesn't even have the energy to drag up a dream, or something. I mean, science says that I have them, I guess my brain just doesn't want to put in the effort of remembering."
"You talk in your sleep," Alcyone mumbles, wagging her tail at the attention she's getting from Ariel. "Usually in English. It used to wake me up, before I could... realize that you weren't telling me to do something." Nanami looks first startled, then sheepish at this revelation.
"Sorry, Alsie. I mean, I'm glad you understand it now, but..." The dog brrrfs softly in amusement.
Buff? Ariel looks up from her silently sworn duty of giving Alsi pets and love. Lucky doesn't seem to be getting jealous though, taking the time to give Nanami's fingers a massive lick. The tongue is abnormally warm, and not really wet at all, but does seem to leave a brief shimmering trail in its wake.
"Ah? Well. They're there- even if you can't remember them." She confirms, even without science. Though the super buff swole joke seems to sail clean over her head, Ariel gives that slight little smile of her own. "Oops. At least it's not bothering your sleep now that you understand, right?" That's to Alsie. but she does purse her lips briefly. "Oh, ah... On that topic. If you ever get any sudden nightmares, or ones that won't go away, would you mind letting me know?"
Nanami gives the other girl a sidelong look at that question, but she nods after a moment. "Sure will." It's casual, as is Alsie's giant-dog lean-head-on. "I... if you see any people that act like they've had some kind of earth-shattering grief-meltdown who keep ranting about the other half of their souls, will you let me know? I have a cell, you can probably text me or something." She digs in one of the packs on Alcyone's back, pulling out a small notepad and pen, writing her name down and her phone number and offering it to the younger girl.
It's a trade then. Which is all well and good because Nanami ends up with a small girl staring quietly at her with a level of bewilderment that is almost epic in scaled. "Okay?" Ariel has seen many things since coming to the waking world, but that is clearly not among them as she tilts her head curiously. "The other half of their souls?"
It's as good a place to begin her line of questioning as anywhere else. But she takes the slip of paper with the contact information. It is on the mention of having a cell that Ariel beams, fumbling through her skirt pocket before producing her own; beginning to type in Nanami's name and number while listening. "Ah... So what kind of thing causes that... Meltdown, exactly?"
Nanami gestures at Alcyone. "Apparently Alsie and I are like platonic soulmates or something now- we're something called a Twinsoul." We're a singular thing, yes. "So I think what happened to those people is... well, what would happen to me if someone killed Alcyone, or what would happen to Alcyone if I died." The scary part of being attacked by the Halfsoul wasn't the attack itself. It was the grief, so easy to understand, so easy for her to put herself in his shoes.
Alcyone nods. "It'd... even the thought kind of hurts. It's not just because we're already basically a 'set', either. I need her, and she needs me, not just for walking."
Topaz eyes follow the gesture, resting on Alcyone, before the girl's head tilts to a new angle, as though swapping what eye to regard the Newfie from. Lips purse as she tries to parse an understanding of the explanation, but eventually gives a thin smile. "I think I understand." She says catching on quickly, before the next part makes her cringe. 'What would happen if one dies'.
Death is still so wholly new to Ariel, but she has had close enough brushes with it to understand it is a terrible thing, when it comes suddenly, but even still, the sudden memory on having it raised has the girl putting her arms almost instinctively around Lucky's neck as though expecting protection. It makes the wolfhound sit up a bit more alert, even if there's precisely zero threat present.
Huff.
It's a second or so before she relents and nods again. "Lucky and I are close, but I think that's something else entirely different. --But if I see anyone like that I'll let you know right away."
Nanami nods, petting Alcyone's head. The dog gently sneezes on Ariel. "I don't think we have to worry too much about that, hopefully," Alsie says gently, setting a front paw on Ariel's leg. She brrfs gently at Lucky, and Nanami sets a hand on Ariel's shoulder.
Reassurances are nice, and Ariel does seem to un-tense after a bit. Though Lucky remains 'on guard' the whole time regardless. She nods. Alsie saying to not worry too much about it helping her lighten up before--
Ariel is sneezed on. The result gets another one of those little bleating sounds from the 'foriegn' girl, wiggling slightly. It's with a low wurf that Lucky almost seems to say 'It's cool, I got this'. Because it doesn't even matter where Alsie sneezed on ehr Lucky gives his ward a huge lick up the face.
Dogs.
Nanami blinks a little at the bleating sounds, looking down at Alcyone. Alcyone snorts softly. "Are you... bleating?" Nanami asks, with a small chuckle. A girl who bleats is slightly less unbelievable than a talking dog, after all.
"Eheh hehhhhhh..." That is an awfully large sweatdrop rolling down the side of Ariel's brow. This is... Actually the first time anyone has ever called her out on it. "Maybe I'll explain it another time."
Because right now her hair is messed up in a huge dog-related cow-lick incident.
Lucky lolls out his tongue looking as smooth as a criminal.
Nanami nods, stretching her arms before putting her hand on Alcyone's harness-handle. "I should probably get going, too. It was nice talking to you," she says with a small, crooked smile. Alcyone nods, standing as well. She sniffs and then snorts happily at Lucky before the duo start to stump away.