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Entry tags:
so wave goodbye to living alone
Who: Ned, River, and Soobie
Where: Cemetery
When: Day 53
What: Ned decides to give this 'friendship' thing a shot; he and River come across Soobie
Warnings: None anticipated
A few days on, Ned's had time to go over his initial meeting with River, and it's pretty clear to him now that he was unfair to her. His panic and fear over being kidnapped had made him act hostile and downright mean, when she was only being friendly. He's starting to see that things work differently, here. That there are plenty of other people here like him. Not exactly like him, of course, but like him in that they are unlike normal people. And River is one of those people. By freaking out over her telepathy, he had done to her exactly what he was afraid people would do to him if they found out about his secret power. The thought of it leaves him feeling guilty and unsettled, so he decides to find her and ask if her offer of friendship is still on the table.
At least, those are the reasons he tells himself.
But Ned knows, deep down, that there's something else at play, too. River knows his secret. She made that clear to him right away, and in his fear, he didn't realize the implications. For the first time in his life, someone else knows what he can do. He won't need to lie to her; won't feel as if his entire life is a lie when he's around her. That makes her a rare - a unique - individual.
Ned, being Ned, doesn't want to say he's sorry without some sort of peace offering. So, when he goes looking for River, he brings with him an extremely odd sort of gift. He's carrying a small bag containing a certain amount of very rotten, somewhat-eaten fruit. He didn't find much, even after covertly searching whatever dumpsters and bins he could find in town, but what he did find he collected (with gloves) and washed carefully. Now the messy dregs, the pits and moldy scraps are all there in the bag, waiting for him to touch them and bring them back to life as whole, healthy, delicious fruit. He couldn't give that fresh fruit to anyone else in town, or they'd ask where he got it, and he wouldn't be able to come up with a good lie. With River, he won't have to lie, and so she gets to reap the benefits of her own knowledge and willingness to keep his secret.
He finds River in the cemetery, dancing. Not wanting to interrupt her, he takes up a position by a tree, just watching silently for a few moments. She dances with a joy and ease that surprises him; he wonders how she does it.
Where: Cemetery
When: Day 53
What: Ned decides to give this 'friendship' thing a shot; he and River come across Soobie
Warnings: None anticipated
A few days on, Ned's had time to go over his initial meeting with River, and it's pretty clear to him now that he was unfair to her. His panic and fear over being kidnapped had made him act hostile and downright mean, when she was only being friendly. He's starting to see that things work differently, here. That there are plenty of other people here like him. Not exactly like him, of course, but like him in that they are unlike normal people. And River is one of those people. By freaking out over her telepathy, he had done to her exactly what he was afraid people would do to him if they found out about his secret power. The thought of it leaves him feeling guilty and unsettled, so he decides to find her and ask if her offer of friendship is still on the table.
At least, those are the reasons he tells himself.
But Ned knows, deep down, that there's something else at play, too. River knows his secret. She made that clear to him right away, and in his fear, he didn't realize the implications. For the first time in his life, someone else knows what he can do. He won't need to lie to her; won't feel as if his entire life is a lie when he's around her. That makes her a rare - a unique - individual.
Ned, being Ned, doesn't want to say he's sorry without some sort of peace offering. So, when he goes looking for River, he brings with him an extremely odd sort of gift. He's carrying a small bag containing a certain amount of very rotten, somewhat-eaten fruit. He didn't find much, even after covertly searching whatever dumpsters and bins he could find in town, but what he did find he collected (with gloves) and washed carefully. Now the messy dregs, the pits and moldy scraps are all there in the bag, waiting for him to touch them and bring them back to life as whole, healthy, delicious fruit. He couldn't give that fresh fruit to anyone else in town, or they'd ask where he got it, and he wouldn't be able to come up with a good lie. With River, he won't have to lie, and so she gets to reap the benefits of her own knowledge and willingness to keep his secret.
He finds River in the cemetery, dancing. Not wanting to interrupt her, he takes up a position by a tree, just watching silently for a few moments. She dances with a joy and ease that surprises him; he wonders how she does it.
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She's not really surprised to find that Ned is still there when she's finished, but she is pleased. That is, until she stops and gets a better look at him. "Wrong end of a green ball of angry, eh?"
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"Unfortunately. Got off to a bit of a rough start, here." He rubs the back of his head nervously. For all his grand schemes of swooping in and making an eloquent apology, he doesn't have much practice with this. It's another thing entirely to making casual conversation with customers. That he could do easily enough. This is harder. He's come to realize that he wants River to like him, and that prospect is nerve-wracking.
"That's why I'm here, actually. I've been looking for you. I mean- that sounds creepy- that's not-" he breaks off with a frustrated exhale, tries again. "I came to say sorry for the way I acted when we first met. I was kind of freaking out about the whole kidnapped by evil scientists thing and I took it out on you when you were just trying to be nice. So... I'm sorry."
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She raises her eyebrows at his apology before curtseying, low and deep. She actually has on boots today, since the ground is so cold to walk on for too long. "Could think very loudly and she'd come a'meandering along soon, in type by some measure of time, but probably faster for you to use your own two eyes." River laughs just a little. "Don't feel too bad. Had a headache and all the snappish short frayed ends and they're still coming in the cracks in droves but today is a better day. Learning the balance to teeter-totter between one pole to the next.
Apology accepted. Friends?" Shake on it, Ned, because River is sticking her hand out and probably won't suddenly grab you to spin you around in a two step.
...probably.
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Ned reaches forward and takes her proffered hand, expecting something along the lines of a handshake not a sudden and spontaneous dance. He does his best to follow her footwork, but he can only keep it up for a few seconds before he's tripping over his own feet and wobbling dangerously. He lets go and steps away with a laugh that is, for once, more enjoyment than nerves.
"Friends," he says, and is surprised by the spark of happiness it causes, somewhere right next to his heart. He hasn't had a real friend since... well, since Chuck from across the street. Of course, the feeling is not without trepidation, but he sets that aside forcibly for the time being. Smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, he remembers the bag of fruit, picks it up and holds it forward.
"I brought these for you." He starts to reach into the bag and hesitates. He looks all around them for signs that anyone else might see or hear them. He notices nothing, save the usual and unsettling cameras. The coast is clear.
Still, though, he hesitates. It occurs to him that he has never done this in front of anyone - not anyone who was paying attention and knew what was happening, that is. Now, he finds himself shy of putting his powers on display. His confidence, previously bolstered by her concern and kindness, falters. He's spent too many years dreading and fearing and imagining this moment not to take it quite seriously. Would she think differently about being his friend, after seeing his powers in action?
But it's too late to go back now, and it is this alone that impels him to just get it over with. He reaches into the wide-open bag and draws out a half-eaten apple that is no more than a brown, wrinkled husk. That is, until his fingers touch it. The moment they do, there is a very faint electric sound, a brief glow as the apple swells with new life. In seconds it is a large, bright, perfectly ripe granny smith, that Ned tosses gently to River to catch.
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But now there's fruit and River is immediately curious. She knows where this is probably going, but she's never seen it before with her own eyes, clasping her hands behind her back in proper important things watching form. The noise makes her blink, but then she laughs, clapping before neatly catching the apple and turning it over in her hands.
River isn't distressed at all by Ned's ability. If anything, she's in outright awe of it. "Regeneration on an atomic level, transference of energy through tactile activation!" She grins at him and takes a bit. "It's good!"
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But River doesn't flinch, or run away, or look at him with sudden mistrust or disgust. Instead she laughs, claps her hands even. She acts as if she has just seen something wonderful.
It's been a very long time since Ned could think of his power as wonderful. He's had too many years of living with it by himself, gradually accruing negative associations around it - layers of fear and shame and guilt. Any time he tried to use his power for good, in the past, things always seemed to go wrong. Even as she smiles at him and tastes the apple, he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something is bound to go wrong, any second now....
But the seconds pass and there is no great catastrophe. Nothing, except the sudden and rather conspicuous withering of a clump of weeds a foot or two away from where they are standing: a life for a life. Ned ignores it, pointedly.
"You're not...afraid?" he asks, tentatively. It seems too good to be true, but he can't deny the evidence of his eyes. River seems perfectly at her ease. Not even all that shocked. Excited, perhaps, but not shocked.
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For a moment she contemplates offering Ned a bite but then remembers, right, he can't do that. Which is kind of unfair, she thinks, to have him shoulder that burden when everything else takes a matter of moments (the grass was noticed, but not directly observed). He touches someone, and the dead lives, and the living dies, but Ned continues on.
No wonder he's so lonely and traumatized.
"Back home she is the last and the only one standing, and was unique before then. No one else is like this, broken speech for shattered minds and fighting to keep it going, they've all already fallen apart. She knows things and they've been afraid of her. She knows..." A slight shrug. "Parents shipped the girl off to learn, or so she was told. They taught her the wrong things, and her parents turned away."
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It's something of a revelation for him, listening to River talk about herself. Not only is she not afraid of him, but she understands what it's like to be feared for something she can't help. He'd wondered, from time to time, if at some point in his life he might find someone special, whom he trusted enough to tell about his power. He'd never hoped for someone who had her own power, too, and could offer understanding rather than just pity. His smile is shy and small but absolutely luminous.
Ned listens intently as River begins answering the questions he'd never even asked aloud. Of course; she can probably tell how curious he is about her. Not just about her world, but about her, specifically.
"So... not everyone is a telepath, where you are from?" Here he'd just been assuming it was normal, for people from her time. "And...your parents sent you away because of it?" He wants to be sure he understands her properly, hopes that she doesn't mind him asking for clarification because her way of speaking is so circuitous and ambiguous, though in a way that he's starting to think is rather fun. As for being sent away, well... he knows how that feels. Doesn't say so out loud, but then, he supposes he doesn't have to.
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River sways in place a bit, allowing her thoughts to drift, but any attempt by Ned to change the topic or apologize is waved off. "Want to explain it, just...need a moment to ensure the speakerbox and the memory banks are communicating the same information still." Because she does want him to understand, thinks that he'll relate on several levels, the same way that Charles and Erik can relate individually and as a functioning unit.
Actually, that brings a bit of dawning realization to her face. "You should ask the knight, ask Erik, what the disease that causes the symptom of overuse of the third person in an attempt to create space. You should ask him and if he asks, you should tell him I sent you to learn it."
That will help, River decides, and she can't bring herself to feel at all bad for shunting some of the responsibility to explaining her onto the shoulders of someone she trusts so highly. Mal would have done the same anyway. "An albatross." Wait. Wrong train of thought. "And now we have a new song, one moment."
Okay, back to the conversation at hand, as it were. River holds out her arm for Ned to take and loop his own through, because she wants to walk with her friend and talk about these things and doing both at once would probably be better. "She was a dancer, that was her title, and a sister, and a genius, and difficult, perhaps. It was a school. The Academy. She was convinced, it seemed perfect. Simon was away, Simon my brother, Simon the doctor, Simon the boob. He was away learning to heal and hale on another planet, and there was nothing else to do. She went to the Academy." River closes her eyes and shakes her head. "And they broke her. They turned up the traffic to a screaming pitch and broke her and tried to make her 'better'. Faster. A psychic assassin: what government wouldn't want one."
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He wonders how much more difficult it must be, to find the words to explain an ability like mind-reading. Something that is always present, rather than triggered from time to time in certain circumstances. Ned had never really given much thought to it, but he's grateful now that his own thing doesn't affect his mind or impede his life constantly. When he's by himself, in controlled spaces, he can forget that he's a freak for stretches of time - hours, once or twice a whole day. River doesn't have that luxury, it seems.
When she tells him to ask Erik about some kind of disease that she apparently has (for Ned takes the word literally), he nods. He's met Erik already; didn't make the best impression, when all was said and done, but that's not important right now. He isn't sure why River calls him a knight, but it's probably the same man. How many Erik's can there be, in this little fishbowl of theirs?
Ned hesitates before looping his arm through hers. It's not that he doesn't want to, per se; he is just incredibly unaccustomed to physical contact or closeness of any kind. Still, what harm could it do? The fact that he's wearing plenty of layers certainly doesn't hurt, either.
He lets out a huff of laughter when she describes her brother as a 'boob'; there's a degree of affection to her voice when she's talking about him that he envies. Ned was about to ask more about him, but that train of thought gets cut off abruptly when she says, obliquely, what they did to her at the Academy. He feels as if all the breath has been knocked out of him.
"Oh." It's all he can manage, for a moment.
A small part of him wants to know more; the rest of him really, really doesn't. He is aware that his imagination can (and will) run wild with paranoia given the smallest provocation. He has the sneaking suspicion that hearing any details about how they'd amplified River's powers and turned her into an assassin would do just that. He knows it's selfish - she's the one who went through it after all, and she's only giving him the explanation he asked for - but he really doesn't feel like having a panic attack just now, and he can already feel his chest getting a little tight with fear. It's not that he's afraid of her. He's killed people, too. But at this time, in this place, he really doesn't want to think about peoples' powers being used and altered against their wills.
He casts about in his mind for something to say, but what do you say to a casual revelation like that? I'm sorry to hear that horrible things happened to you? Ned doesn't have much experience at giving comfort, or the little common banalities that friends offer one another during serious conversations. He knows he should say something, but he's suddenly forgotten how to string together a sentence.
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Only she's so fractured that it is safer not being a secret.
"Simon saved her." Look, a happier topic? "It cost him the whole life he'd built before then, and he was...disowned." A nose wrinkle. "You'd like him. He's...fussy. Good with people as a doctor, goofy with people as a friend. Too smart by halves, too kind by wholes." Not that she wants her brother to show up here - if he does, it will be so much harder for her to stop herself from setting the whole damned forest on fire in anger.
Moving on, towards the library. "Then we became pirates in space."
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He does like the sound of River's brother, is glad to hear that he got her out of the evil clutches of her government before she'd been dragged here to Cape Kore. If their situations had been reversed, he can't help thinking, there wouldn't have been anyone willing to save him, much less throw away the life they'd built to do it. He didn't have any siblings; he'd long ago decided that his two half-brothers didn't count.
He's now started to get used to River telling him outlandish things. He doesn't disbelieve her when she says they were pirates, but it does surprise him. "Pirates in space?" he repeats. Now that he is certain he wants to hear more about.
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She tilts her head back towards the sky with a wistful expression as they approach the library. "Miss the stars, miss floating, miss going all over, different planets, different people, and then...quiet. Half a dozen voices, no more no less. More difficult to balance, here. New ones, old ones, missing ones, found ones, all in various tones of what."
Onward into the library then, to find them some books. Maybe ones that River doesn't see the need to edit heavily with red pen.
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There has been some cold comfort for Ned, in the emptiness of his own life before he arrived here. At least he is not missing anyone, the way River is, and no one is missing him. Digby is the one exception - and the thought of his loyal confusion and sadness at his favorite human's disappearance makes Ned feel sick with sadness. How much worse would it be, if there had been others, too? People whom he loved the way River clearly loves her fellow space pirates? This is it; this is exactly why he didn't get close to people.
Except now he is going against that instinct, in making a friend of River. The way she speaks about her other life is a small reminder to him that this arrangement is necessarily temporary. Cape Kore is a dangerous place; he learned that right away. He might not make it here for very long. Or River might go missing, as so many others apparently had. Even in the best of all possible scenarios, if all of them broke free tomorrow, she would presumably find a way back to her time and place, and he to his, and they would go their separate ways.
So what is he even doing, even hoping for here? Isn't he just setting himself up for a brand new disaster? The more he likes River - and already he can hardly imagine that not being a great deal - the more it is going to hurt when - and it is a when, not an if - she isn't there anymore. Shouldn't he start arming his heart in advance for that inevitability?
All of this flits through Ned's mind in a manner of seconds, before what River says about navigating the thoughts of so many other people reminds him that she can probably hear his doubts and all his automatic defense mechanisms. Embarrassed and hoping to distract her in case she hasn't noticed already, he rambles:
"I used to wish that I could go into space and see other worlds, meet aliens and learn all the mysterious wonderful secrets of the universe. We didn't have spaceships when I'm from. Well, not real ones. We've made it to Earths' moon and no further. I went through a phase where I wanted to be an astronaut, but-" But there were medical exams upon medical exams, government observation and levels of confidentiality and it had all seemed too dangerous. "-I'm not smart enough."
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"If the window opens and it can be done..a visit. To see the stars." River grins at Ned and begins walking down the main aisle slowly. "Can stand and count them all until the eyelids fall down to the lost horizon..."
She begins glancing down stacks, a quick duck and then turning to the next, before she suddenly disappears around one for a moment to reappear on the other side just as quickly. Her expresion is a mix of amusement and childish wonder. "He's still here." Her voice is now just above a stage whisper, conspiratorial and mischievous. "We should wake him."
And then she runs down the stacks again. How does someone run that fast without making any noise?
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"Who's still here?" he asks, following River as quickly as he can without jogging, himself. "Who are you looking f--" he doesn't finish his sentence. He doesn't need to; he's spotted who River is looking for.
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He only leaves the library at night, when he can hide in the shadows and in the shadow of his hood, but he's been staying awake otherwise, reading, and staying hidden when anyone else chooses to enter the library. This happens rarely enough that he thought he was safe, or, as safe as he could possibly get.
But now, he's exhausted himself, and he's vulnerable, even tucked off to the side, slumped unconscious in an armchair. The hood he's left up shades most of his face, but his silver button eyes, unclosing even in sleep, glint faintly from through the shadow. A book is on the floor in front of him where it tumbled from his slackened hand.
He awakens abruptly, to a gleefully shouted "Soobie!" and a face only a foot from his own when his eyes flicker from an opaque haze into sudden, alert awakeness. Terrified, he tries to scramble backwards, sideways, somewhere, tips the chair over and falls over the top of it. It's day. He can't go running out, he'll be seen. He's caught, he's caught, it's the end, he...can't make himself come out from behind this chair. It feels deeply ridiculous to him, in the part of Soobie not actively panicking.
"What?" he says hoarsely, and then clears his...voicebox and tries again, still panting, slightly. "What do you want?"
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Grinning down at him happens. Totally ignoring the fact that this is a horrid way to introduce herself to someone she's been surreptitiously watching for a while also happens. "Your eyes are the reflection of stars and nothing with stars in it's composition should sleep in things made for sleeping not hide in the dark and be unhappy."
Why is everyone so keen on being unhappy here? Angry, yes, that she can get behind, but not this drowning melancholia. "Anyone who has a problem with blue can tell her, she'll champion against it. Ask Ned for credentials of friendship to the wire and annoyance to the bared last nerve. Hello and good morning, good morrow."
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Why did she just go up to the kid and shout his name? He clearly doesn't know her. Then again, why would that stop her? Ned remembers his first meeting with River and how disoriented and frightened he had been. Perhaps she just wasn't that good at non-terrifying hello's.
He catches enough of a glimpse of Soobie's face to know what River means when she says that she'll look after him if anyone has a problem with the blue. Ned's reaction to meeting someone blue is much less pronounced than it would have been just a couple days ago. Why wouldn't he be blue? River was a psychic, Daneel was a robot, Bruce apparently turned green AND gigantic under certain circumstances.
Of course, that doesn't mean too much. He is still staring, mouth gaping open as if he were a fish. It's hard not to. Still, he collects himself enough to say, in a breath:
"I'm Ned and this is River and I promise we don't mean you any harm."
That was a good thing to establish, wasn't it? He thinks it is what he would want to hear, were the tables turned.
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River, he'd seen before, talked to, on the watch network. Ned, he hasn't, but there's something about his eyes and his demeanour that suddenly reminds Soobie of Albert. Times past, and the one human he'd ever been friends with. It confuses his reaction, but it also helps to calm him a bit more, even as he disdains this false source of comfort, irrational as it is. But at the very least, it's calmed him. He has to be calm about this or he'll never make it through.
"I hope you don't mind if I keep my hood up," he begins with, his voice carefully steady. "It's for your sake. My appearance will only alarm you. You'll want to reassure me that that isn't true, but I do know I am unsettling to humans, and I'd rather we continue to talk normally, if we are to talk." He watches Ned and River a moment, and then concludes, "There are seats, over in this part of the library. We should sit down."
River has offered to protect him from those against his blueness. He feels she should know the entirety of himself before she makes any promises.
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She shrugs, as if to say 'what can you do?' before turning around and looping her arm through Ned's again before navigating them to a few benches by the window. River knows good and well exactly what Soobie is or isn't like, but Ned doesn't, and he is going to be the buffer of normal in this conversation apparently.
Good. "You'll be ambassador." Patting Ned's arm and letting go once they sit down. "Unfortunate position that comes with the title of River's friend."
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Soobie seems to be calming down, a hell of a lot faster than Ned had, when he first met River, and he hadn't even been asleep at the time. In the hopes of maintaining this renewed calm, Ned assures him, "You can keep your hood up if you want." Ned is all about respecting other peoples' boundaries, even if they seem like silly ones at first. Besides which, he knows himself. He doesn't want to tell Soobie it's fine and that he'll be cool, and then not be cool.
"Are you...living in the library?"
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"I am living here. It seemed like the best option to me." He half-smiles. "I enjoy reading, and I needed a place to hide away from everyone else here. I'm hiding because I'm a rag doll." He says this frankly, like he'd say anything else. "I'm made of cloth. I can't tell you why I'm alive, because I'm uncertain as to how it happened myself."
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"Why for the whyfores, for conscience is living and the rest may not apply. Bring books and blue and the wisdom of sixteen ages, bring them and receive shelter." She leans against Ned for a moment before tilting her body back in Soobie's direction. "Adiabatic immortality, pacing that keeps with constant pitch and level." She likes the way he thinks. "And the other's melody, closer to your creator than most manage to without unethical fervor."
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Ned could have sworn he heard 'rag doll', but that's silly. Only the boy keeps talking, says he is made of cloth and doesn't know why he's alive, and Ned finally admits to himself that he heard him just fine. There really are stranger things on heaven and earth, aren't there? Of course, Ned knows it's a little hypocritical, to be so shocked by the existence of a life-size, walking, talking, alive rag doll. Who is he to judge? He isn't exactly the world's most plausible person himself.
Suddenly daunted by his new position as ambassador, Ned finds himself singularly unequipped to clue Soobie in on what River means, since he has very little idea himself. Adiabatic? He isn't even sure that's a word. Is the creator she's speaking of... whoever made the rag-doll boy. Ned looks between the two of them and asks, a little awkwardly.
"So... River called you 'Soobie'. Is that your name...?"
He wouldn't put it past her to have come up with a nickname already.
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"You're probably more right than you could even know. If there's any explanation, it's in the woman who made us. Me." He wavers again, on whether it's foolishly indulgent of him, to make friends on the pretense of normality under shade of his hood. But these two can be a test, maybe. Of whether knowing Soobie before knowing, really knowing Rag Doll will dull the fear of his impossible nature. Or whether, in the end, it's best he show his face to begin with. "There's something comforting in things being always the same, though the sword, in this case, has more edges than two."
He shuffles a moment, then, hands going self consciously into his pockets. Putting his gloves on would look stranger but his hands are very blue.
"My name is Soobie, yes. I doubt it's a name outside myself. Kate became more inventive as she progressed through us." Inventive to the point of making a blue doll in a family of peach ones, only she knew why.
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But now she actually drags her eyes over and looks him up and down. "The last and the only, the outstanding ones amongst our kind. Singular in isolating variables. Stick together, everyone - they hunt by separating one out from the stampede. Here we are! Here we are, unwilling and unbound but here we are."
With that announcement made River sticks her hand out for Soobie to shake. "Do you want a room?"
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Case in point: Ned's habit of not intruding, of keeping out of things that aren't his business, is getting in the way of his offering any opinion just now. Curious as he is about Soobie - about who created him, and why - he isn't going to ask heavy questions like that a few minutes after meeting him. He holds his tongue, watches as River tries to convince Soobie to leave the library, waiting to hear what the boy's reply will be.
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He cuts himself off. Everyone will know where he is. On the other hand, he might have more privacy. He might be safer. But can he trust River, really?
"Do you want me in a room near you?" he decides upon, in the end. This is...he has to do this, if River thinks she's suggesting that. "Brace yourself," he suggests to Ned, and pulls his hood back to reveal a blue cloth face, and hanks of woollen hair. The most obvious aspect is, of course, his silver button eyes, glinting in the sun through the library windows. They are quite obviously buttons, but something about them, likewise, is alive. His expression is halfway expectant, and somewhat anxious, as well. This is the moment of truth.
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She actually settles down long enough to watch this grand reveal unfold. Of course none of this is shocking to her at all; she already knew what Soobie was the moment he was within range of her ability to fall headlong into the minds of others. So at first, all River does is tilt her head from one side to the other.
Then she reaches out and tweaks a little of Soobie's hair, and pokes him in the eye with her forefinger. "Not silver. What are they made of?" A pause. "Does this hurt?"
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And then Ned's wonder is cut short by his alarm at River's disregard for boundaries. He's starting to learn that that is a thing with her, but even so.
"River!" he hisses between his teeth, horrified that she would just poke someone in the eye like that and ask a few seconds later if it hurt. The order of that was definitely wrong. Besides, it didn't seem the best method of them all to make Soobie feel safe and accepted, poking and prodding at him like he's a thing