Okay. So. When Melissa invited the children to ask questions, she probably should have expected that something like this would happen. Were she in their place (and predisposed to asking questions when invited), she probably would have asked the exact same things. As Melissa tried to pick out exactly which mundane detail to reveal about herself first, she took a brief moment to fidget with her watch. Hana and Trevor seemed to be having trouble with each of their respective summons -- if she surrendered, wouldn’t the duel just end and solve half of their problems? Everything would just go away, right? This turned out not to be the case, something Melissa realized as soon as the water level started rising again, helped by a Constable warning bark. Whatever Hana was doing, it was more real than the fake duel disk on her watch could muster. So that was officially other people’s problem to solve, then. She was busy doing the best that she could with something equally as challenging. “What do you eat?” “Well, I eat all kinds of things -- I’ve never been a picky eater, um, I guess my favorite food would have to be fried fish? There’s a period of time where I’m from called Lent where people give up something- traditionally red meat, and on Fridays people would get together and have fried fish and fries and, um…” She realized she was evangelizing, and only just managed to pivot. “Our team captain is also a talented cook, so now I’ll eat whatever she’s happy to make. We just got a bunch of fresh groceries a few days ago, with every kind of vegetable you could imagine and I’m excited to see what she’ll come up with.” There were titters about healthy eating amongst the crowd, because of course there were, but the children quickly moved on. “What color do you like?” “Blue.” Even now, she felt like she was disappointing someone. Not that clarity would help, but, “Kind of, like, sky blue, but maybe a shade darker.” Melissa thought of Yusuji. She wondered if that painting would get finished in her absence. “Why did Papa go away?” And thus, Melissa was once again reminded of just who exactly she was speaking to. It had been so easy to forget; these were orphans. Of course, some of them would still be in mourning. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. -Matthew 5:4 (NIV)Somehow, Melissa felt both well- and under-equipped to answer the question. In retrospect, she had handled Elizabeth’s similar question with about as much grace as she could handle (that was to say, she hadn’t ended up a blubbering mess, and Elizabeth still talked to her afterwards), but also, like, one solid, known answer did not a proper preparation make. And just like before, she felt obligated to try anyway. Melissa moved closer to the desk where the child was cowering and sat down next to it, not to the point of infringing on their space, but enough to indicate that she was focused on the child and the question at hand. It also gave her the briefest of moments to consider her approach, and accept that anything but upfront honesty would only lead to worse outcomes. “I don’t know,” Melissa said. “I don’t know for a lot of reasons. I could say I don’t know because I’m new at this -- new to becoming a Guardian, new to Prana, and new to meeting you. But I don’t think that’s the question you were asking.” She adjusted her posture and crossed her legs. The rest of the world might as well not have existed. “I mean, I do think I understand the question. Where I come from, there can sometimes be an invocation of some cosmic force like, uh, 'karma,' some people call it, or maybe there’s a mysterious plan laid out by God for everyone in every universe, and things just have to be this way. The more material-minded call it cause and effect. And a question like yours tries to grapple with the sublime nature of such things. Some people find comfort in using those as an answer to your question, because their existence implies that there’s an answer in the first place. They don’t know it -- nobody knows it -- but the answer exists, and that’s enough. But for other people, well, to other people it can feel like a platitude, like that answer is just passing on the question. There’s an alternative, but I worry you won’t like it much either: “I don’t know,” Melissa said, “because it might be unknowable; it might be something that’s not possible to know. And what you’re feeling now -- right now -- that sense of loss? That pit where an answer would fit right in and restore you to wholeness? That might not get filled up ever. But,” And here she tried to force a small smile, “there’s still the rest of you too, right? “That was what somebody told me when I was younger,” This was a small lie by omission; Gracie Stevens had lost somebody, not Melissa, and had imparted her own wisdom onwards. “It’s always going to hurt, but what you have to do is find the other parts of you, and make do the best that you can.” Melissa reached out her hand, some part of her finally crossing the threshold to below the desk. “I’m glad to have met you,” she said. “What’s your name?”  

Things were not going well, Chris thought. Not only had this prospective hire still not yet told him her name, she’d also managed to get the attention of everyone in the bar. Chris could hear Hector’s stifled laughter even above all of her wailings about what some hypothetical version of Chris would do to her, all the while Chris really needed her to do literally anything else. “Nobody’s drowning anybody,” Chris said. “Here, here’s how you can be useful." He pulled out the ring he’d gotten from the dungeon. “Do you know what this is?” She stared at it a moment. “That is… a ring.” She realized what Chris meant before he could clarify himself, and Chris immediately wished he’d gotten there faster as the woman immediately went back into wail mode and cried, “Oh, oh I'm such a fool, a foolish fool who only does foolish things! B-but if you don't mind a fool handling your things I can… identify it. I can wear gloves if you don't want my foolish germs touching it!” "Why would- I don't think you'd have to use gloves, but you will have to pull yourself together a little bit," Chris said, but he still offered the ring. “Th-this is pulled together!” was not exactly convincing, but the woman did take the ring and do a little magic spell with it. Chris couldn’t tell what was going on, but also she didn’t seem to be threatening him with it (did she even have the capacity to threaten anything?), so he let the magic happen. When it subsided, she even had an answer to his actual question. The ring was a locator. If it had someone’s blood in it -- three someone’s even -- the wearer could tell where they were. “Probably,” the mage said. Ah, well, it was a first step. “See?” Chris said, making one final attempt at being encouraging. “That’s what you’re getting paid for here. That and the actual docks job. Come on. I want to get there while there’s still light so we can get a lay of the land- sea, whatever.”

I like it, for what it is, but it's so repetitive. It does its job as what it's meant to be but...wouldn't go out of my way to listen, 6.5/10