installing | ♨ 1 Apple Pie + Nineteen Apples and Cinnamon

♨ 1 Apple Pie + Nineteen Apples and Cinnamon | Action/Voice ♨

[Today Winry has a busy day! Despite things in her neck of the woods slowly turning normal(ish), she has a lot to do. Feel free to bump into her at any time/place!

[Late Morning: The Library]
With Ed in the tunnels Winry has been running books back and forth. Sokka has done this too, but she's taking this chance to also pick something up herself. A romance novel with a monochrome book cover catches her eye. She'll flip through the first couple chapters in the library before taking off.

The book reads:
I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair – it just won’t behave, and damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission. I must not sleep with it wet. I must not sleep with it wet. Reciting this mantra several times, I attempt, once more, to bring it under control with the brush.

[Early Afternoon: The Smithy]
Work as usual - not. Off and on Winry tends to small chores and cleaning up prototypes, but nothing extremely productive. She might end up slacking off and reading again on the couch.

The book reads:
Portland disappears in front of us as we head into US Airspace, though my stomach remains firmly in Oregon. Whoa! All the bright all the bright lights shrink until they are twinkling sweetly below us. It's like looking from inside a fishbowl.

[Late afternoon: The Square]
Winry sits herself on a bench. The book she checked out was very boring so far. The writing wasn't even that good. She reads much further, but at some point she frowns. The mechanic's expression looks like one of disgust as her calloused hands slam the smooth book shut. Quickly Winry sets aside the book to open up her journal:]

Hey, would you trust anybody that made you sign a contract if you were going to keep being with them?

[She glares at the book beside her. Should she finish it? Honestly it's making her very uncomfortable. Maybe she should have picked up a medical text instead.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As a once semi-avid consumer of your average romance-section bodice ripper, I must sadly inform you that steaminess is always going to be part of the package. Usually the covers tip you off, though -- y'know, manly men with open shirts and oiled chests.

No, no. That part I don't mind. [She actually almost sounds like that's what she goes there for.]

But this one... went wrong.

...I know what you mean. Some plot twists just can't be stomached. [ there's a big reason why she only used to consume those books. ] If you stumbled into something that makes you uncomfortable, no one's gonna blame you for jumping ship and not finishing. It's just a book.

...Have you read something so weird you couldn't stop, though?

[Like how in the hell is this supposed to end?]

I used to. I suppose there is a sort of...trainwreck mentality.

[ but after having lived so much weirdness, some of it becomes harder and harder to read. even romance novels just don't provide the same kind of entertainment. not when it's no longer escapism. ]

Yeah... [And then something comes to mind.]

So Jack's back, huh?

[ morosely (and mistakenly): ] Still kidnapped, actually--

In fact, I...

Oh.

Horner. You're talking about Horner. Y-yeah. There's a face I never expected to see again.

[...Oh boy. She'll pretend that didn't happen. For now.]

So he says he's working with you. How has that been?

It hasn't been terrible. [ ... ] He's different, I think. Does he seem different to you?

Actually now that you mention it... sort of. I mean I only talked to him over the journal.

[ thoughtful: ] It's just...he's kinda taken this kid under his care. I was trying to figure out his angle but--

I don't think he has one. I think he's actually trying to look after her.

[ and it reminds her of memories that were never her own and the way that jack had genuinely cared for winry when they were all under the experiment's influence. ]

That's good, isn't it? I'd still want to keep an eye out, but... That's actually pretty decent of him.

That's what surprised me. The decency.

[ funnily enough, she trusts that it's genuine. buffy is nothing if not the sort of woman who will hand out second chances like lollypops -- even if she does it with a frown. ]