Around Town and the Abandoned Warehouse District, Early Thursday afternoon

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Around Town and the Abandoned Warehouse District, Early Thursday afternoon

While Ringo had, of course, been doing daily AT rides since she got back to the island, she hadn't actually returned to her old haunts around the abandoned warehouses. Today started off the same way: a leisurely ride through town, some time on the streets, most of it along the rooftops. Fandom didn't have any skyscrapers to ride, but it was still a really interesting space. Tight spaces and some interesting verticality made for a fun ride.

Today, however, Ringo suddenly realized that she'd ended up near the warehouses without really noticing. Her body seeming to instinctively move in that direction. She froze, standing still for nearly a minute as she tried to decide if she was ready to face that particular space, but eventually took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and continued.

Most people didn't know what to look for, but once you'd been on AirTrek for long enough, you learned to read spaces where other people rode. Riders left behind scuffs and marks, written deep into the terrain they rode. A lot of those were her own. A rail polished by grinds, a spot on the ground that was torn up because it was the perfect distance for landing a really fun twisting flip trick, and so on. But not all the marks were hers. Some of them were Kathy's.

Ringo found herself staring at a series of small cracks in walls that had slowly formed as Kathy used a specific series of bounces to get up onto the rooftops. It was practically a signature, and Ringo's practiced eye could practically see Kathy doing it again just by looking at those leftover signs. It wasn't a surprise to see that signature, it was most of the reason Ringo had been sort of avoiding coming back, but expectation didn't reduce the impact of it.

It hurt a little bit, those memories coming back, but Ringo managed a small smile, anyway. Kathy had been a beautiful rider, after all, and you couldn't look at the road she'd left behind without seeing the joy of it. Ringo missed her senpai, and she still found herself crying some nights, but Kathy had left joy behind, too. Of course she had.

Ringo's smile widened into a grin, and she bounced on her toes a couple of times. Then she burst forward, speeding into a series of intricate aerial tricks. She couldn't let Kathy have all the fun.

[ooc: Open if anyone wants to catch her on her way through town, or at the warehouses.]

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How serendipitous that Jono had been out for an afternoon jog around the same time Ringo was out riding her ATs, hm? He'd been planning on finding her, and while he'd promised Alluka they'd talk, he wasn't about to go cornering the girl in the dorms or anything like that.

Still, he'd like to see the girls find a little bit of peace between them, and while he cared deeply for Alluka and barely knew Ringo at all, he did have a decent idea of what the girl was likely going through, these days.

So he was quiet as he paused in his running, watching her for a few moments from the street corner and waiting until a distraction seemed like it would be least disastrous, before calling out, //Lovely afternoon to be outside, isn't it?//

Despite being on the island for nearly a year now, Ringo was still not used to people talking to her without, you know, talking. So she spun in surprise, trying to identify who that was.

But his timing had been good, and it was pretty trivial for Ringo to do a little spin to kill her momentum and come to a stop.

"Oh." She blinked, then smiled politely. "At least it's not as cold as yesterday."

Her hands came together in front of her and she offered Jono a bow. "It is nice to see you again, Mister Jono." She really hoped she hadn't gotten his name wrong.

If all of Jono's years of playing underappreciated action hero had been good for anything, an ability to figure out a good time to interrupt somebody moving quickly was definitely on the list.

//True enough,// he agreed. //And the weather'll likely just continue getting better from here.//

A beat.

//Depending on where the island parks itself, I suppose.//

Don't make a liar out of him, Fandom.

Ringo bobbed a nod and smiled. "I hope so. It doesn't really feel like proper summer, yet, and I'm looking forward to that."

//You and me both,// Jono admitted, and there was the faintest hint of a smile in his eyes for a moment before it... faded. A little. //Actually, I don't suppose you have a minute for a slightly more serious conversation, do you? I was speaking to Alluka the other day.//

He held up his hands, then, worried that he'd come off as overprotective papa here, or something.

//Nothing bad, I think I understand the situation. I just... would like to help smooth things over, if I can.//

At first, Ringo looked worried at the idea of a 'serious conversation', but mention of Alluka oddly made her relax slightly.

She nodded slowly, her hands clasping tightly in front of her for a moment. Ringo was already a small girl, but her stance seemed to make her even smaller for a moment. Then she seemed to gather herself and straighten.

"I have time. Is, is she okay?" She swallowed. "Last time I saw her she was, um, not." Ringo hadn't been either, to be fair.

//She'll be fine, I think,// Jono said, his tone gentling as Ringo's stance shifted. //She was very upset, but I wouldn't say anybody was really to blame, per se. She just...//

He paused for a moment, picking carefully at his words.

//She was frightened. There's a lot that she doesn't understand about the world outside of the room she grew up in, but the trade-off is that there's a lot about her that can be difficult for other people to understand.//

"I've kind of noticed that." Ringo frowned slightly. "I mean, she's about my age, right? She's been, um, what's the word? Sheltered?" 'Abused', Ringo. You were looking for 'abused'.

//That's... that's one word for it, yes,// Jono allowed. //Though to a much more extreme degree than perhaps that particular word might suggest. I call people 'sheltered' if they've never heard of Nirvana. Alluka... she's been more... imprisoned.//

There. That seemed like a far more apt word for it.

//You saw the locks on her doors,// he added. //And while I have no doubt in my mind that the Zoldycks might use padlocks and steel doors even on their bloody bathroom, I'm willing to wager that her setup was a bit intense even for that family.//

"Yeah." Ringo frowned.

"And it wasn't designed for, like, personal safety. That's the kind of security you use for dangerous research projects. The kind that you want to keep people away from, but that you're also afraid might blow up."

She'd seen a few setups like that as a child, but never from the side that Alluka had been on.

//They're terrified of her,// Jono said, brow furrowing. //They care about her, she's their child, and as horrible as their actions look she was still cared for. But they're afraid of what might happen if the wrong person gets their hands on her, and that isn't a risk they're willing to take. Not a family with as many enemies as they've got. It's... a complicated situation, with Nanika.//

Truth be told, he was still surprised they'd been allowed to leave with Alluka and their lives both.

//Unfortunately... that means that before Fandom, she never had much more than her room, and the contents of it.//

Ringo nodded. Some of that made sense, and she'd met Nanika, though she didn't really know anything about her other than that she was kind of creepy.

"That's why she doesn't get out much? She's got, um, that thing where you're scared of open spaces?"

//Agoraphobia,// Jono supplied. //And I think it might be a bit of that. Freedom like Fandom offers is not something she's ever really had, and the outside is full of things that she still doesn't quite understand yet. But I think there's another side to it, one that's less about what's outside, and far more about what the inside means to her.//

Edited 2016-05-05 19:53 (UTC)

"Huh?" Ringo blinked, her expression shifting into a frown of concentration. "Inside? What do you mean?

Ah, yes. That was rather what Jono expected that reaction might be.

//It's all she ever knew,// he said gently. //Ringo, her room was her entire world. As much of a comfort to her as faith in God is to the religious, or a parent's embrace is to any small child who grew up knowing what it meant to be loved. We take our rooms for granted, could pack up and move from one to another and leave the old one behind without a second thought. Most of us have. But Alluka was never given cause to think that something as intrinsic to her entire being as her room could ever be something that isn't always there for her. She had to face, for the first time in her life, the possibility that it could be taken away.//

That didn't totally make sense to Ringo, and her expression made that obvious, but she was clearly trying to come to grips with it, anyway.

"What about when she came to the island?"

//When she came to the island, she knew her old room was still there for her back home,// Jono pointed out. //And there was another one waiting here for her. The school already knew her name. She didn't have any reason to think that the room wasn't sitting there and waiting for her to arrive all along, or any cause to worry that her room back home might be taken away.//

Ringo pursed her lips. "I guess I didn't know that."

And she sort of understood what Jono was getting at.

"But she's been here as long as me, right? So she's had time to, I don't know, get used to a bigger world?"

//She's had time,// Jono allowed, though his tone suggested that he had a fair bit more talking to do on the matter. //And she's made progress, certainly. She has a job. She goes to school. These are things she's never been able to do before. But she's still been largely left to her own devices, and... she's not going to pick these things up overnight, out of nowhere. People need more than wide open spaces in order to learn. They need experience, or at the very least, guidance. And she's had very little of either.//

Ringo opened her mouth to say something, but then paused and chewed on her lower lip in thought.

"I," another paused, then a nod. "I think I get what you're saying? Like, if she doesn't have a reason to get out, it's easy for her to just stay in her room and do what she's always done?"

//Right,// Jono replied, thankful that the conversation seemed to be making some headway. //I could leave the island every day if I want to, but everything I need is right here, so I seldom see the need to wander that far. Alluka's situation is something like that, but on a smaller, and much more personal scale. The island isn't mine in the same way her room is hers, after all. And I have other places to go, if I lose Fandom. Alluka's only other option is... well... you've been there.//

Which wasn't to say that she never wanted to go home, or thought that it was somehow a worse option than here. Jono couldn't speak for her in that regard. But for the first time in her life, she had a notion put into her head that rooms could be temporary, and for the first time in her life, she had to face the notion that she might not have anywhere to belong, someday.

That was heavy stuff, for somebody who was still, in far too many regards, still a child.

Yeah. Ringo had been there. And that thought drew a brief scowl from her.

"She doesn't have to go back there." Her tone was firm, insistent. "I'll make sure she has somewhere."

Which wasn't really the point Jono was getting at.

Not really at all, no.

//As much as I hate to say it, luv, if Silva wants to take her back, I don't think there's anything any of us will be able to do about it.// He was also a bit of a realist, there. //But that wasn't quite what I was getting at. And right now, I don't know that she'd let you. She's under the impression that you think that calling a room a home is stupid. From your own mouth, so I've been told.//

Ringo's scowl softened into a confused frown.

"Huh?" She'd never said anything like that, had she?

Jono gave his shoulders a shrug.

//Wasn't there, I can only go by what Alluka told me,// while she was crying in Hannibal's backyard after throwing herself into the dark of night and running blindly down the street. Clearly she'd been distraught. //But while I missed the conversation, the one thing she did seem to be clinging to was that you had said something about how it was silly to think that a room was so important.//

He shrugged.

//It's her entire world. You might not even remember saying it. Maybe it was a throwaway statement. After all, to most people, it really would be silly, wouldn't it? But Alluka... isn't most people. I think that's the thing that had her most upset. The realization that she could lose her room, coupled with an implication that her everything was silly.//

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