kore_logs | (no subject)

With a laugh, she turns to walk backwards as she speaks to him. "I'm a waitress. Eventually you stop thinking about food so much when you're around it all the time. At least, you stop thinking about eating it."

She ducks another branch and turns around again. "What do you do, Wallie?"

That's a complicated question. He's not the sort to hide things, and it's nothing he's ashamed of or has any desire to hide anyway, it's just weird. And a little insane-sounding.

"I'm an engineer. Geochemical engineer, to be exact. Used to manage a petrochemical plant." Wallie would shrug, but he is carrying a heavy load. "These days I'm a swordsman. It was an unexpected career change, but there you go."

She glances over her shoulder at him as her house comes into view. "You look a little young for a midlife crisis."

Of course, she knew better than anyone that appearances could be deceiving. She's quite a bit older than she looks, too. Sort of.

Wallie quirks an eyebrow at her. "I died. I came back as someone else. Look, this isn't exactly a story to tell when I'm carrying something this heavy."

He says it with a bit of a grin, as though it were perfectly normal to die and be resurrected; by this point he's used to it, at least.

She unlocks the door and holds it open, inclining her head towards the kitchen.

"Almost there." She smiles. "And thank you for carrying it." She feels a twinge of guilt about making him do it. She'll have to make it up to him later and not just with a solitary warm meal. She can tell that he's a nice guy. She'll just have to be careful about getting too close.

Well, she took that explanation pretty well, Wallie thinks. He heads into the kitchen, glad that it wasn't any further than this.

"Is the table all right?" he asks. "Or would the floor be better?"

He hasn't cleaned and dressed a deer recently. He's not sure of the best way to do it.

"The table's fine. It's an easy wash." She follows him in. "Gives me something to do while things cook."

She watches him. "So you died?" It's entirely hypocritical of her to pry when she doesn't want to let much of her own past out, but she can't quite help her curiosity.

"I died," Wallie confirms. "I got a second chance, at least. Nice new body, new responsibilities."

He lays the deer on the table as gently as possible, and stands up straight, looking at his bloodstained hands.

"Mind if I use your sink?"

She gestures to it. "By all means."

And, okay, maybe her eyes wander a little at the mention of his body. It is a nice body and she's only human. Sort of, anyway.

"Well, that's a hell of a story."

"Yeah, I know it is."

He knows he's attractive -- or really, he knows that Shonsu's attractive. Wallie himself was never much of a looker. And Ruby -- well, he needs to remember that he's married. Even if he might never see Jja again, he's married. He turns to the sink to wash himself up.

"I woke up in another world. The previous owner of the body, Shonsu, was given a task by a goddess, and he failed. I was told to take over where he left off."

Ruby figures she's probably the only person here who would just believe that, but she's not from this world without magic that so many of the others here clearly are. Maybe it give her away, but faking surprise when he's already seen some of what she can do just seems silly.

"Did you do what she asked or are you still working on it?" She leans against the counter, arching her back just a little. She doesn't mean to do it and her clothing isn't quite as revealing as it used to be, but it's just a little automatic.

She's not back to her old self, not with her memories now intact and definitely not after Billy, but she has her cloak here and she's starting to think that maybe she'll be safe as long as she has it. It's not really her who has to be kept safe, though. It's everyone else.

It's hard not to look appreciatively, so Wallie looks away purposely, as unobtrusively as he can. He has a wife, even if she's not here, and he's not so arrogant as to believe himself irresistable, no matter how attractive Shonsu might be.

"I did, actually." He wipes his hands on a tea towel, thinking. "The gods wanted a wordsman who didn't think like one, and I was a good fit for that job description. I was promised a long and happy life in reward. I'm not sure what I'm doing here, in that case."

She tries not to be put out that he doesn't look. Maybe Red's memories made her lose her touch. It's still so confusing just to think about it. Are Red and Ruby even different people?

"So it's just you in there?" Or is he like her, all jumbled up and not sure where she starts or ends?

Questions like that aren't surprising, and Wallie's heard them before.

"It's... mostly me," he says. It's still difficult to explain. "I have his knowledge, his skills, but not his memories. There's... a bit of an echo of him left. It's his body, after all, his glands, his emotional responses."

Wallie hesitates a moment, because this part is uncomfortable. "Sometimes I get these... flashes... of what he'd do in a situation. Old muscle memory, maybe."

It's a lot of information and he offers it freely. Maybe she owes him a measure of truth, herself, especially when she can understand what he means so easily.

"I'm not totally alone in here, either." The wolf, she intends to keep hidden, but the other curse is something he can understand. "I've got two lives in here and they're just--" She claps her hands together loudly. "Like a pancake."

Wallie leans back against the counter, deeply interested. His predicament is slightly more common than he would have ever suspected. He gives her a smile, crooked with amusement but no less warm for that.

"Like a pancake?" Metaphors are helpful, but he wants some clarification? As opposed to his own situation which is, what, like living in someone else's house with all their stuff? "Do you have two sets of memories? How does that work?"

"Well... I was me and that was all fine." Except for the fact that she'd been a monster. "And then there was this curse and I was someone else entirely. I didn't have any memories outside of that new life until the curse was broken and now I've got both. It's a little confusing. Well, more than a little. It's hard to tell where Ruby ends and Red begins sometimes."

They're not facing the same thing, but maybe he can understand at least a little. "Granny seems to have an easier time with it, but then I've got some extra complications that she doesn't."

Curses. Wallie doesn't get curses, doesn't like the whole idea. It goes against how he knows the world works, but a lot here does that. Vampires and things. Fairy tales, not... real life. He can adapt, though. He's already had to adapt to gods and alternate realities.

But he thinks briefly of disassociate disorders, and then dismisses that, because he doesn't know anything about psychology.

"Your grandmother had a similar problem? Sorry, I'm not used to talk of curses meaning anything. Do curses run in families?"

Oh, he has no idea. "The memory thing was directed at a lot of us. My family is hardly the only one hit. We were brought to a completely different world."

She slumps a little. "It was a lot like this place, actually. Where I came from originally was... well, it was really different. Obviously there was magic, but in the new place we were brought to, there wasn't any. Not-not that I can do any magic, but it affected me. It all trickles down."

This is closer to the sort of thing he understands, or at least has experienced. Alternate worlds are a lot easier for him to swallow than curses.

"The world I was originally from wasn't too different from this place," Wallie offers. "Shonsu's world, where I ended up... More like something out of my world's very distant past. Still very different, though." Like Babylon in the Amazon, though he's not sure if that would mean anything to her. "There wasn't magic in either, though, unless you count gods interfering." he doesn't know if he does, exactly. "The World has sorcerers, but not magic. I'm, um, not used to it."

"Magic definitely complicates things. I honestly wouldn't mind going back to not having it if I could keep my memories this time." It's not that she'd been unhappy as Ruby, but Red is just as much who she is. She doesn't want to lose her memories, even the bad ones. She's still marveling at the fact that she's kept them here.

"I kind of wonder if this place is a curse."

It's possible. He can't rule it out, at any rate. He doesn't know enough about curses to say anything about them, one way or the other.

"Maybe," Wallie allows. "If it is... well, like I said, I don't know much about magic. I'd have to take your advice about it."

He flashes her a brief grin. "What should I know about magic?"

"Other than the fact that most of the people who practice it tend to be morally questionable at the best of times?" She really can't think of anyone she would trust, that's for sure. Magic users tend to be those who seek power like Regina and Gold. She'd be wary of anyone here who had that sort of power, too.

"True love's kiss can break most curses."

Wallie smiles. He's too much of a romantic to not like that -- just like in fairy tales, imagine that -- but he's enough of a sceptic to wonder about what the official definition of 'true love' might be. He thinks of Jja, of course, and couldn't have helped that for anything.

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely, so they say." And it's a lie to say that he doesn't worry about Nnanji, left to his own devices with Wallie to keep an eye on him. "The sorcerers of, well, Shonsu's world... they don't have actual magic. They hold all the technology, though, which looks like magic to everyone else. It all gets... pretty morally questionable even without actual magic."

Fairy tales might be a bit closer to the truth than he realizes. Defining true love is hard for Ruby. She thinks maybe she could have had that with Peter, but she never really got a chance to find out. There hasn't been anyone else and there won't be after what she's done.

"That's not always true. My friend is a leader with a lot of power and she's one of the kindest and most good people I know." She misses Snow. She's met a variety of people here, but no one can replace Snow or Belle. She misses her friends. "I think it's just the magic that does it."

Wallie's never had a problem throwing out a theory if it proves untrue. He's dealing with forces he doesn't understand, and all he has is theories. "Then maybe," he suggests, "common wisdom has it wrong. Maybe power, magical or otherwise, only enhances what we already are, good or bad."

Which... honestly isn't much reassurance as far as Nnanji goes. No, not really.

"When I came here, I left my oath brother with a lot of power and responsibility. I was going to be there to help, to guide, but..." Wallie exhaled heavily. "I hope he's as good as your friend."

"Try not to worry." She smiles. "Maybe he just needs you to have faith in him. He's your friend, right? You had to have seen some good in him."

Not that seeing the good in someone is always correct. Plenty of people had seen good in Regina at some point and Belle saw good in Gold and Ruby just can't tell anymore how people get so blinded.

"I saw a lot of both, honestly. I always knew he had a bit of a bloodthirsty streak."

Wallie shakes his head, trying to rid himself of uncomfortable thoughts. Either way, there isn't a whole lot he can do about it right now. If he gets out -- when he gets out, he can't start being defeatist over this -- then he'll deal with any mess Nnanji's made.

"But you're right. I can't worry about him right now. We have enough on our plate as it is." He gives Ruby a crooked little smile, a somewhat sad expression.

His description of his friend isn't promising, but he doesn't need more to worry about, right?

She reaches out to rest a hand on his arm. "One thing at a time. Let's work on staying alive and finding a way home."

Wallie smiles, and he finds himself putting his own hand over Ruby's. He should stop himself, he knows that, but it seems like a lifetime since he came here.

"Sounds good to me." He squeezes her hand gently before letting go. "Maybe you can give me some hunting lessons so we don't all starve to death in the meantime."

"I can do that." She pulls her hand back after a moment.

"To be honest, I've learned a lot from the books in the library. I started to look up edible plants, too. It's not a huge library, but there's a small section that's at least pretty helpful. It's probably harder to learn without my speed, but you're strong." She tips her head towards him. "I've just tried to figure out how to kill the animals with the least amount of pain. There's no point in making them suffer."

He can't argue with humane methods, and definitely would pick that if he has a choice about where his meat comes from. Wallie's never been a hunter himself, but he could at least respect anyone who would rather give an animal a quick death.

"I didn't know there was anything that useful in the library." And maybe if he could still read, he might have been able to do something about it himself. That's... frustrating, to say the least. Surely, though, it can't be that hard to teach himself to read again. "That's good, though. Once the weather warms up, that'll open up all sorts of options."