"I'm going to see about getting us some warmer clothes," she announced once breakfast was over. "It's been getting colder the past two nights. We're going to need something more."
"You're not going alone." Trunks-kun didn't seem to notice that both of the other two's attentions focused on him, but she caught it out of the corner of her eye. Oh yeah, they had accidentally left some stuff out of their earlier discussion regarding the other inhabitants of this world. They would have to rectify that sooner rather than later. Most of her attention was on Trunks-kun, though.
"I wasn't planning on it," she reassured him soothingly. Turning back to Duo-kun and Heero-kun, she explained, "The Carrions have been known to eat people apparently. No one should go out alone."
"They don't like heights too much either. They're fast, but they have no stamina, so it's possible to outrun them," Trunks-kun added darkly. "Tenchi-san said that they do seem to prefer women."
"So Usagi definitely doesn't go anywhere alone," Duo-kun finished. "I understand."
She tried her best not to seethe or even be annoyed. Those were the facts, and she supposed that they did need to know all of them. It wasn't any of their faults that it meant she had to be taken care of, that she had to have an escort at any time she left their building. Really, she shouldn't have even gone into the back courtyard by herself.
The whole thing made her mad, but there was nothing to do for it really, was there? And that made the whole thing depressing as could be. But she really needed to stop herself from going all maudlin and melancholy on the subject. There was nothing to do for it except just to deal with it.
"But one person here alone should be all right?" Heero-kun persisted.
Trunks-kun nodded. "That's pretty much what Tenchi-san said."
"I'm going to keep working on this programming, in that case. The three of you should go. Trunks, you said you needed to talk to this Tenchi person anyway. Duo and Usagi can go see whoever it is they need to see about warmer clothes."
It made sense. They would all have to stop at Tenchi-san's anyway, so she could find out where she and apparently Duo-kun needed to go to find the person who was responsible for the clothes. It would work out well and should give Trunks-kun long enough to talk to Tenchi-san about any previous escape attempts.
It would also mean that she could talk to Duo-kun alone for at least a few minutes. That was good. She had some questions she wanted to ask him, mostly about what he had said to Trunks-kun and how serious he was by it.
She had only known Trunks-kun for seven days now, almost as long as she had been in this crazy place. But she had long since laid claim to him, more so than she could remember claiming anyone ever before in her life, and she thought that maybe she was starting to know him.
From everything she could tell about Trunks-kun, he wasn't the kind of person who got into a relationship for the short term. She wasn't either, so it worked out well that way. But was Duo-kun proposing long term or short? And he had to understand that they were going to be a package deal.
And then there was Heero-kun, but that was an entirely different matter entirely. Or was it? Was Duo-kun propositioning Trunks-kun because Heero-kun wouldn't give him the time of day? Because that would add an entire other level or something to this whole thing, and she wasn't sure she liked the sound of that at all.
She nodded her agreement to Heero-kun's proposal. "Sounds good to me. Trunks-kun? Duo-kun?"
To her relief, they both nodded their agreement, and neither of them even looked especially reluctant or anything. It was a step in the right direction as far as she was concerned.
That settled, she started gathering up the remains of her own breakfast and the food Duo-kun had never even touched, stashing them in one of the convenience store bags their lunch bentos had come in yesterday. That would make transport much easier.
And maybe while they were out, she could also manage to speak to the Thunder Emperor. Tenchi-san said he was mad and maybe he was--she wouldn't know that for sure until she met him after all and she wasn't going to jump to any conclusions based on what other people said--but the Reapers feared him and it sounded like the Carrions stayed out of his territory.
If they were able to try to find a way out of here, they were going to need all the help they could get, because she really didn't think the Reapers were going to give them or their powers up easily. The Thunder Emperor might be exactly what they needed.
She hoped anyway. Hopefully there were some people here who weren't as accepting of their situation as Tenchi-san had become. It was going to be a fight to get free. They were going to have to have fighters to do it.
19 October 2012
I'm so close to being done with writing this story...
See you in the next chapter!
Apollymi