[Tellingly, he spends an hour drafting variations on the same message. It goes something like hey, kiddo and are you safe, Powder? are you well, are you happy, are you staying away from danger? It's a thousand questions that he already knows the answers to; common sense deductions based on the facts he already knows. He deletes, retypes, tries again and again until something comes along to drag his attention away from it, unwilling.
In the end, he settles for this: ]
You layering up, like they're saying to? [which doesn't feel adequate at all. Doesn't feel right, or big enough. Silco had warned him not to overwhelm her, like Vander hadn't tried to quell the sensitivity in her since she'd blinked her big blue eyes at him in Felicia's arms. ] Avoiding unnecessary fights?
[ jinx phones him an hour so after she gets his message (half of which she spends listening to said message on repeat and wishing silco had left her something similar, to remember him by — with the smell of him fading from his jacket already). eventually, she adds an extra layer, wrapping a scarf around her throat and mouth.
it muffles her voice now. ]
I need your help carrying scrap from my room to the restaurant.
[the answer is immediate: the ringtone makes him jump, he doesn't even look at the name and just sort of -
hopes. assumes. ]
When? Now?
[she sounds so - different. the rasp to her throat is such a startling change to the soft, high-pitched voice he last remembers her with. she sounds so grown up, a million miles ahead of him in so many ways. ]
[ his voice is the same. the sound of it — big, like him. she just watched him find his things that first day, a crow perched above him. it’s different, interacting with this vander, precisely because he’s exactly as he was, untouched by time, shimmer and hextech.
jinx isn’t. ]
Unless you want to let the shamblers in for some [ imitating sanji ] bouillabaisse first, yeah.
[ a weighty pause. ]
You know where our rooms are, right.
[ our, as if silco is still here. she preserved his room accordingly (apart from the jacket she now wears, hanging off her smaller frame). ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
@vander - voicenote.
In the end, he settles for this: ]
You layering up, like they're saying to? [which doesn't feel adequate at all. Doesn't feel right, or big enough. Silco had warned him not to overwhelm her, like Vander hadn't tried to quell the sensitivity in her since she'd blinked her big blue eyes at him in Felicia's arms. ] Avoiding unnecessary fights?
📞 — callback.
it muffles her voice now. ]
I need your help carrying scrap from my room to the restaurant.
[ … ]
The Straw Hats are staying there.
[ and she’s gonna protect them. ]
no subject
hopes. assumes. ]
When? Now?
[she sounds so - different. the rasp to her throat is such a startling change to the soft, high-pitched voice he last remembers her with. she sounds so grown up, a million miles ahead of him in so many ways. ]
no subject
jinx isn’t. ]
Unless you want to let the shamblers in for some [ imitating sanji ] bouillabaisse first, yeah.
[ a weighty pause. ]
You know where our rooms are, right.
[ our, as if silco is still here. she preserved his room accordingly (apart from the jacket she now wears, hanging off her smaller frame). ]