"!" Rubi'i smiles seeing that Meteo has no longer a frown written on his face
It of course catches easily Meteo's eyes, noticing her sudden joy. "Hmm? Did I break you with that tickling?" Shokui asks out of curiosity, truly not understanding why her face suddenly changed into this one - the smiling one.
"Well of course... I am happy... You no longer... have a frown on your face... brother!" She points out, still trying to catch her breath from all the said tickling
It may have not been the way she planned to change ani'i's mood, but somehow, in this unconventional way, without even trying, she accomplished making him smile.
Sigh.
"Sure." Smiling softly with heaviness hidden behind his sight. Saying to himself within the mind "I guess you are good at distracting me from the current environment, I can give you that." He pets her, stroking her small bush of hairs that yet to grow into an actual length.
She enjoys it
Their transient mood being broken by Ruby's stomach making a loud growling noise, reminding them two they had eaten nothing in 3 days. Shokui was distracted by all that was happening, and he slept through those few days, so it's less noticeable for him; however, the same can't be told about Ruby. She had been on her legs for over 3 days and how much in it was sleep is a difficult thing to say, for she certainly will not answer straightforwardly.
All that running, all that tickling, suddenly reminded her stomach that it needs food.
"I am sorry... Even if I thought of eating... anything... multiple times... I couldn't make myself eat..." Rubi'i says, blushing as the child would who was found out by their parents that they were skipping on meals.
Chuckling. "It's all right. You need not say sorry-s to me." Looking at her nevertheless with that teasing stare, which make her feel even more bad about her current predicament. "I'll try to make something for you"
"..." Ruby tries to process his last words. She understands them separately, but when combine, she somehow fails to comprehend. "Huh?" She looks as Meteo stands up no longer having her pinned. "You can do food?" She seriously dumbfounded.
"It's first time for everything, no?" As a matter of fact, it is indeed Shokui's first time trying to make something other than cereal and instant noodles. He was spoiled too much by grandma to ever think of learning on how to make anything by himself. Honestly, if it wasn't for now, he would probably never even try his non-existing skills. After all, there was a girl that offered to make food for him when they marry. Pity that he will never be able to see her...
Now his mood all sour again. Sigh. Longing in his eyes of a future never to come.
"Can I help you then?" Rubi'i asks shyly
"No need." Smiles. "Just stay still and let your bro make something for you. After all, you were looking for me these few days..."
She's touched. Her heart skipped a bit from hearing the gratitude even though it being completely not necessary. After all, all she had been doing these few days was worrying, puking, trying to gather herself while all the time being alone.
~
Meteo moves in a direction of where he remember being a lake. To be precise, Aki is guiding him like a navigation system telling on where to go. They reach the lake that runs not far from their family home that had been staying deserted for those past few days.
He calls it house, but as a matter of fact, it's just three-room hut. Small porch to neither bring cold or wet from outside. Main room with small kitchen and table where everyone eats mother's made meals, and lastly a bedroom for them all. All squeezed sleeping on one small bed made for single person use; made of wood and skin leather; pillows stuffed with feathers, and skin leather blankets. Father was good at needlework while mother was really good at skinning. Quite humorous considering it should be in reverse.
Oh well, at least the traditional part of woman cooking and man hunting was still there. Chuckling at all that.
Honestly, speaking of Aki, he's currently trying to learn writing. He skimmed through all the library until he finally found himself in pre-school, kindergarten, first year of primary school, section. He's copying letters in alphabet in a notebook I manifested for him, while at it, I also thought of making a pen to write all that.
Considering at this time something like feathers should be used in writing, he manifested his early schooling fountain pen. It's the closest thing to feathers, he can think of.
Morphing his eyes into Migawari pattern, black strings fall of his fingertips, finally being able to check what they are made of. He grabs one string with the other hand, places the cord close to his mouth, and tastes it.
Carbon.
It has a taste of coal.
He guesses that it must be that carbon fiber he heard of once.
Still, carbon is not a very tough item when heated up. So, at that time when Aki used his ability and the string suddenly changed its hue to red, being hotter to touch, by all means it shouldn't cut as well as it had.
So, then he tries to activate that ability, and it takes a few tries to turn it on, on his own.
It's not like he has a microscope eyesight, with which he would be able to see what is happening, however, after few tries and attempts on making the process as slow as possible, he finally sees what's going on.
3 separate strings combine into one single cord resembling the way wires are made of for the large voltages. From this new string small crystals grow, coating the whole thing. Considering it also must be carbon related, those small shards must be diamonds, and the reason why it all can stay together and structurally not collapse, shattering, is most probably because of the energy constantly going through those cords. Henceforth this red hue; and why it so easily shattered when he hit this swordman's armour.
It is quite literally as if holding plasma in a string shape.
Returning to the problem at hand, having all summed up in his mind, he deactivates the Aki's ability, leaving the original black strings. Sudden deactivation made the crystal coating shatter off from the wire.
After doing all that, with Aki's help the heat vision is activated and he easily catches 3 fishes.
Before a single fish could realize it's no longer inside the water, it's decapitated. Meteo placing his teeth against the tail and using the eyes as the heat metric, he blows fire, melting off all of the fishbones from the inside, coincidentally resulting by chance in also cooking the fish meat from inside out. Quite literally two birds with one stone kind of situation.
Stopping to infuse the fire, he skins the fishes and cuts the tails off, cutting boneless bodies into two halves, he places the meat onto the wooden plates he brought from the kitchen.
"Voila, a cooked carp." Joyfully he says, basking in hype of cooking fish so easily. "..." Thinking though for a bit, he adds "... or whatever fish it is. Never had been a fish enthusiast to begin."
He tries a little bit to see how it tastes and he radiate with surprise. He chews for a second, few, and gives an honest review - It being the best fish he ever ate. "Is it because of the method it was cooked?" He ponders, adding "It's really good~." Smiles on his face, seeing his first ever meal turned out to be success. "I worry three won't be enough~." He chuckles. "Well. If Ruby will ask for more, I will make more."
~
"Here it is, sis." He brings a plate full of 6 fish meat pieces, giving them all to her. He didn't expect though to see her salivate.
She sniffs.
"Fish?" She asks herself, not exactly silently. "Why does it look so good..?" She asks, her mouth salivating on pure sight with combination of smell. Turning her eyes on her brother's "All for me?"
"All for you." He responds with amusement. "I may even make more if it won't be enough"
Her eyes sparkling.
"Your hands aren't exactly clean, so here." He brings a wooden fork, takes a piece of the fish and places it against her mouth, which she inhales; biting, chewing, tasting, salivating more with each single chew, she runs. Seeing where she runs, he says "Ah.." Chuckles.
She went to wash her hands and immediately run back, taking plate and stuffing all of the meat inside of her mouth. "More" She asks, giving Meteo the empty plate back. Her stomach only half full, all the meat she just ate already burned into the calories her muscles lacked from not eating anything for over 3 days.
"Sure." Meteo says. "Wanna see me making them?" Asking out of curiosity and amusement of seeing her enthusiasm.
She nods fast. "I can even help catching you few."
"I am looking forward to seeing it"
"I am even going to catch more fishes than you!"
"You sure you want to bet on that?" I ask while chuckling.
This exactly chuckle made Rubi'i feel uneasy, nevertheless, she is stubborn enough to lack self-preservation skills whenever she decides herself on doing something dangerous. Proof being her biting into that man's leg. Although, she doesn't plan any time to return to this memory. After all, if she will, she will all over again beat herself over the fact that she was the reason of why father is dead... Henceforth she does not back off from her words, instead kindling the fire into bigger inferno. "Of course I'll win!... but what to bet on.. Huh" She ponders, trying to think of something, yet nothing coming to mind.
Calming his chuckle, he stops her meant to fail task of attempting to win over him in catching fish. "There is no need on betting anything, you will fail anyway, and there is nothing I could even ask you to do for me."
Ruby deflates in realization that Meteo is right. "Alright..." She gives up on the betting something part
~
And good that she did, because when they gotten to the river, she is dumbfounded to see her brother using his eye abilities to catch more and more fishes.
She didn't even know Meteo had such abilities. She stands frozen feet deep inside the river, holding a single fish attempting to bounce off her grip, inside of her hands, inside of her palms.
"Heh." He sends her this full of teasing expression, seeing her flabbergasted.
"Waah." She cries. "That's not fair!". She made the contest to begin with knowledge that Meteo possesses not such cheat skills. "Since when you can do such things!". Pointing at his eyes with the fish in her hands. "And what about those eyes, why are they like that!". Pouting. "I also want such cool eyes!"
"You also have them, elle'e. It just happens that burning everything to ash is not as versatile"
"And what's that supposed to mean!" Still clearly pouting in envy.
"Sorelle..., you do have same eyes as I do." Regret lingering in his tone as he says that. "I guess that whatever abilities those eyes do give us, is different for each of us and probably depends on a person." Pauses. "Remember when from all of your body exploded flames?"
She nods after a bit of thinking back. Reminding herself on what happened just before her passing out.
"That was probably one of the skills..." Sighing. "Not like I am saying that's all what you can do with it, simply told, you must had gone out of control then"
"I see..."
Placing all the fishes inside of the basket, I get to Rubi'i and hug her. "Do you want to see from close my eyes?"
Feeling better after this hug, she turns her head up and looks into Meteo's eyes. It's not like she couldn't do all that from when she was looking down, it's just that the eyes are hazy about everything that is not in front of them, so when she stares now into his eyes, the image is now more detailed. "Woah" She expresses when seeing the pattern from up close.
"Try to tense your eyes, until now you unconsciously activated them whenever you felt sad, angry and pained." Looking into her eyes. "But it should be easier now to unseal them whenever you want"
"I'll try..." Doing what her brother had said, her eyes start morphing slowly. She doesn't know whether what she's doing is right way and when to stop, but she realizes the time when she sees more clearly than before.
As she's looking at Meteo with those same eyes, just with 2 soul symbols and not 3, she instinctively uses her second eye ability not to its full capacity, seeing dark blue, calm like sea, aura, surrounding her brother's visage.
"Yeah, we have the same pattern Migawaris"
"Miga..wari?...". She asks while being in trance from watching this blue aura that surrounds her ani'i
"Mhm~. That's what I called them."
"It's a cool name.. But. What's those blue clouds that surrounding your body"
Shokui tenses. Thinking of what she means by saying blue clouds, but then he realizes. "I think... you are probably seeing my aura". He says as he focuses onto her eyes more deeply, seeing her second soul symbol, the one that symbolizes her second ability, being a bit more highlighted than the other
"Aura?" Her eyes with each second being able to see more deeply into this blue haze that he called aura, starting to unconsciously read the emotions hidden behind it. At first sensing calmness, peace, determination, motivation, sense of adaptation; however, the longer she looked, the darked, richer the hue was getting, being able to read more - Stability, maturity, but also lingering sadness and emotional heaviness. But not only blue was there, but also sparks of green, sensing possessiveness but also kindness.
It was intoxicating. When she was about to get so deep to coincidentally detect that she was looking at single soul of two, she snapped out of it due to the sudden pain sourced from her eyes. A few blood-coloured tears nearly gone down her cheeks, dropping down into the water in droplets, but they were wiped by Meteo hands.
Her eyes switched back into original pattern due to the stress her eyes just went through.
She doesn't understand why she feels so intoxicated when she looked into that blue haze. However, if she were to place these feelings into words, it felt as if she wanted this sea touch her soul and stay there forever.
"Do you feel well?" He asks with tone of worry in his voice. "You look pale"
"It's fine..." She says as she starts to breath hard again.
After seeing that she does not lie, but indeed she doesn't feel that terrible. He says a simple "Good.." After a bit of silence and thinking on his side, he looks at her. "Let's forget the bet, come, I'll make those fishes for you"
She smiles in response, letting herself be taken by hand.