APPOINTMENTS

[mikangirl]

 

 

This post is to be used specifically for one-on-one appointments and interactions with Nami.  
[written], [voice/video], and [action] are all fair game - just mark the method of communication and the date in the subject line.

 

Comments

[mikangirl]

All right. [Sorry, Sanji-kun. Nami will leave you to your walk soon enough. She'd just rather talk in a place that's completely private. Her coat is still on, so she just zips it back up and heads for the door. Though she'll let him open it.]

How are you feeling?

[concasse]

Pretty good! [And sore. And tired. But these are things that can go unsaid. If nothing else, he's walking straight and not in any pain - though his wings are pointedly covered by his shirt, and then his coat, when he puts it on.]

That shitty wing's completely back, finally. [He opens the door]

[mikangirl]

[Well, that's all she'll ask for. If he suddenly keels over out here, she'll be there to help anyway. Stepping back out into the chilly air.] I'm glad to hear it.

[But after that she'll lapse into silence for a bit, jamming her hands into pockets and watching her breath in the cold. At least until they're a little way from the house.]

[concasse]

[Sanji spends those next few minutes contemplating conversation, and eventually decides not to follow through. By now, he suspects she has ulterior motives for joining his evening walk. Curiosity keeps him quiet.

At least, until he figures they're a respectable distance away from their home. And then he turns to her, some of the bemusement showing.]

[mikangirl]

[She's surprised at his bemusement, honestly. But then maybe the earlier conversation wasn't that worrying for him. Which makes her dip her gaze to the ground uncertainly; maybe this isn't necessary after all.

Still. Maybe it is, then, for other reasons.]

...I talked to a lot of different people today. [She's hesitant; testing the waters.]

[concasse]

[At that, he chooses to look ahead at the unmarked road they're walking. He'd brushed through some of the replies... but the opinions of others aren't as important to him as what Nami decided to take away from them, if anything.]

I saw. [His voice is quiet, but still light despite the conversation they're heading into.] Did you find what you were looking for? [Were you looking for anything?]

[mikangirl]

I did. Alternatives. Sanji-kun-- [She breaks off, biting her lip. And after a breath, pushes on, words fast.] I hate it here. I want to go home. But not-- not at the expense of others, if I can find a way.

[Is that okay? Because that last part... is a qualifier.]

[concasse]

[If I can find a way.]

But you would, if there was no other option. [He turns to look at her now. It's a statement that comes out a question - one he hopes that doesn't sound accusing. Sanji thinks he knows the answer, but if they're going to have this conversation...

He just wants to be sure.]

[mikangirl]

[There's a long silence, though it's because Nami's turning it over in her own mind. She cares about a lot of people in Luceti-- but she agrees with Luffy-- logically. If she doesn't bring emotion into it. If she does, there's Bellemere. Any of the other dead people she's grown to care about. Hell, even Alexei.

So Nami doesn't know where her answer would be if the chips were really down. But she's been chewing this over since she closed the journal.]

...if. [Her voice is soft.] I agree with Luffy. [She's sorry. But none of them are meant to be here.]

But I also believe there are other options. I'm a hundred percent certain of it, now. I think if we actually find a way to go home, it'll be by using the Malnosso's own technology against them-- and that means we get to choose who stays and who goes home. And maybe--

[Maybe come back to see the people we leave behind. But she can't promise that, she only hopes for it, and that probably is asking too much, so she stops there.]

[concasse]

[He listens to her as she rushes through with a tiny little smile playing at the corner of his mouth, not immediately processing her words after the first admission.

I agree with Luffy.

Aa. He thought so. And he's not angry or sad, either. Oddly, he's glad to know - maybe in the same way Nami wanted to.

So when he catches up with the rest of her words, hearing of her certainty isn't a wave of relief to his differing opinions, so much as it is a startling revelation. He inclines his head, openly surprised. It's a sting to his pride, but he's spent so long seeing the best of the best broken down, that he'd grown complacent with their terrible odds] You've found something out?

[mikangirl]

...it's better to say there's an idea I want to try. Though I think it's probably not going to work, but on the off chance... [Better to try and fail than to sit there and just assume there's no point trying. One is less damaging to the soul, you know?] And if what I think does work, it's not a solution either. It's just a start.

But those 'other options'... it's common sense, Sanji-kun. If a villager manages to find a way to get home, it's only going to be by finding whatever is used to bring us here. And we all come in individually and leave the same way, so... if that's the case, and we get hold of it, we can use it the same way.

[And if the Malnosso party line is true - that they don't know how the villagers arrive - then it's all moot anyway, because there isn't any way they can get home until random circumstance makes a person vanish. But she doesn't believe that anymore.]

[concasse]

[He nods along, quietly backing her up. Quitting before you even start just isn't how they do things.]

So what's the first step? Gather information? Find this technology? Use anything they give us? [He can't imagine the Malnosso freely handing over the secrets their technology if they can help it - certainly nothing they'd assume the villagers could understand.]

[mikangirl]

I know where the technology is. And I know someone who might be capable of learning its secrets.

...it's just a matter of stealing it. [This grin. It's as much sly as it is self-mocking. Something she excels at, isn't it?] From there, I'm hoping I can use it to get the information we need.

There's a lot of ifs involved. [If she's right.] So that's why-- it might not work. It probably won't work. But it's worth a shot.

[concasse]

Sounds like familiar, shitty odds. [There's a wry smirk working its way to the surface. When have they ever dealt with fair stakes? This is par for the course.]

But Nami-san... how do you plan on getting close enough? [She'd have to go beyond the barrier first, he figures, which points to either a kidnapping... or the missions]

[mikangirl]

There's the missions, although they're probably too well-watched to manage it. [Doesn't mean she won't try if given the opportunity. But that's her back up plan.] The missions at least give you access to certain things you might be able to use. But there's another possibility I didn't think of until recently.

Catherine's hiding out in Luceti. Below the battledome. And he already has Shifting technology down there, or the means to create it.

[She already knows all the odds stacked against that. She can't just simply walk into Mordor catch an elevator down into a sub-basement and lift a handy piece of machinery labelled Shifting Technology off the shelf. Nami takes a breath.]

How to get that... I'm working on.

[concasse]

Catherine? [His voice colors in surprise; guess who completely forgot that shithead had fled the organization.]

Why not use him? [By force, if necessary. Which is even more complicated than her current plan, but there are more than enough people in Luceti willing to pull a Jedi Mind Trick if it means gaining his... cooperation.] Shithead's not exactly on good terms with his old team.

[mikangirl]

Use--? [Blink. And derailed for a moment. There's a small, guilty part of her that doesn't want to go that far, given what he did for Noel, but--

--well, this is about going home.]

...could do. I was thinking in terms of break and enter. [Like the thief she is.] I wonder how hard it'd be.

[concasse]

Don't know. I doubt he's got a welcome sign that'll point us in the right direction.

[Which begs the question if the door leading to him - assuming there is a door - isn't some shifting technology beyond their level of comprehension.]

Who else knows about your plan?

[mikangirl]

Nobody, yet. Just you. Just... well, the bones of a plan. So far, it really only goes as far as getting hold of that Shifting technology. If we can work out how to use it, maybe we can mount our own investigation outside the barrier.

[...]

There are some people I spoke to today who might be able to help.

[Largely, it's what her question was all about.]

[concasse]

[It's a start, and despite the many variables that go into it - all the "maybes" and "ifs" - Sanji can't find any huge faults.]

Who?

[mikangirl]

Two fellow thieves and a scientist that specialises in gamma radiation. Which, on further explanation, turns out to be the study of how energy ... [Thinking back, how did he put it--] "How energy travels from one source through some kind of material or space."

[Which, on her limited recognition of the higher sciences, sounds remarkably similar to the sort of physics that might govern the barrier. >>]

He's probably smart enough to work out how Malnosso technology works.

[concasse]

... So it really could work. [They even have someone on their side who, theoretically, could act in Catherine's steed, should he prove to be less than helpful]

[mikangirl]

[Such a statement brings a gratified smile to her face.] It could work.

[It probably won't. But it has the possibility.]

[concasse]

... Well then.

When do we start?

[mikangirl]

[...Sanji, you don't know how relieved she is to hear you say that. Brightest smile ever.]

Kind of now. Though I figure the best way to broaden our chances of actually succeeding in taking that stuff is to use some of their 'rewards' from the missions. Like the barcode stuff. We can check out what opportunities the missions give us at the same time. I know realistically that if they really want to find us they probably could, but I think they'd also have to be actively hunting for us. So... we might be able to use it to hide ourselves from detection when we try breaking in.