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

[installing]

[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.]

Comments

[herotypical]

Short ones. With happy endings. [ ... ] A-actually? I prefer poetry.

[installing]

Poetry is nice. Some of it is too abstract for me, though.

[herotypical]

I confess -- gimme a love sonnet any day of the week. I love'em.

[installing]

I can appreciate that. Do you regularly read any poetry books?

[herotypical]

Now and then. Not so much with the regularly. But I'd recommend Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

[installing]

I'll keep her in mind.

[herotypical]

Anything before her is too stodgy. And a lot of what comes after is too free-form.

[installing]

Noted.

But I think I should finish this weird book first.

[herotypical]

Are you sure? It sounds hella unfun.

[installing]

I dunno, I think I gotta see how bad it really gets.

[herotypical]

...Why?

[installing]

"Train wreck" remember? Plus I have time on my hands.

[herotypical]

Well, you should give me the cliff notes come the end -- so I'll know why to avoid it.

[installing]

Sure thing.

[herotypical]

But...how are things? Y'know, besides filled with weird sex contracts.

[installing]

Oh, well... okay aside from somethings I guess.

[herotypical]

There are more things than the contract?

[installing]

Well the writing is a little boring, and I think this guy has a sex dungeon.

[herotypical]

A...sex dungeon.

Winry, are you sure you're not reading straight-up porn?

[installing]

Okay sex dungeon was... wrong. It's just a room where he apparently keeps kinky stuff? I don't even know if this girl really wants to hook up with him or not.

[Maybe this will turn into a psycho-thriller.]

[herotypical]

...If he devotes a whole room to his kinks, that's definitely warning sign number one.

[installing]

But I don't want to just be left hanging!

[herotypical]

No, but it's entirely possible that he may want to be. Left hanging, I mean. Auto-erotic asphyxiation is not just a long made-up word. [ ... ] Two words. Three if you squint.

[installing]

...Excuse me?

[herotypical]

Auto-erotic asphyxiation. It's exactly what it sounds like. Well -- I think it is. It's not like...I mean, I don't think it counts if previous partners simply never breathed in the first place.