,
&
Syaoran Vividali
Ruben allowed himself to be helped to a stand, mostly because it would look even more awkward if he started trying to attach his leg now, after this whole scene. In his mind, he was determined to play it cool and act as if this was nothing, until he realized just how bad the whole thing looked. He never really thought of himself as disabled, but he guessed he kind of was, with missing a leg and all. He did his best to help and lean as little on the girl as he possibly could, but he was in need of the support, since he felt that familiar tingle of energy inside of himself that usually accompanied the sense of pain. He just hoped he was doing a good job at hopping without too much support. “
Zank you,” he said, smiling as warmly as he knew how to do, but not able to completely hide his embarrassment, “
I can stand.”
Sally's eyebrow perked up and her smile grew. Cute and had an accent. How had she not met this guy yet? Probably because she was too busy trying to stop fights and drooling over a certain bearded beauty. She pushed the sudden thoughts from her head and nodded, slipping out from under his arm. It was when she turned, she saw the cute little boy standing in the hall, holding the object she had intended to go back for. He stood there with the prosthetic, asking if he could help.
"Yes, you can. You can bring that in, if ya would?" It was also then, that she noticed her drink in the hall. It had spilled out everywhere. Sally held her hands out and made a noise that clearly meant she was upset. Turning back around to face the man, she grinned and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
"You owe me a new drink, Captain," she joked with a smile.
The Sally person confirmed that the boy could help. Venturing forward, the boy bounded over to where the two were standing, holding out the leg. That was when he saw the spill in the hallway, and immediately questioned just what he’d gotten himself involved with. “
Just so we’re clear, I meant helping with this,” the child remarked, freeing one hand so that he could point at the detached leg. “
Not with that,” he added, pointing over to the spill.
Ruben took his prosthesis with a smile and held back a laugh at the comment the child made on the spilled drink. The girl's comment, however, made him feel a bit bad. “
Zank you both for ze help,” he said, “
I will help clean zat in a momént,” he added quickly before making a few awkward hops backwards, till the back of his knee hit the edge of his bed and he rather unceremoniously fall on his ass. “
I swear, I am not usually such an empoté,” he added with a small laugh, pulling the harness onto his stump and attaching the leg, “
You would zink I 'ave two left feet,” he joked, hoping it was not too awkward for his company that he was actually strapping on his leg and all with them in the room. It was too late now to think about it.
Sally laughed at the boy, Sy if she remembered correctly, and was about to say something about his comment towards her drink, when the other spoke up first. She waved her hand in a dismissive manner, rolling her eyes.
"No, no, you don't worry about that. I'll get it." She glanced over at Sy and wondered what exactly he had meant when he mentioned helping with the mans leg. And then suddenly, her eyes widened and she turned back to face the other man, her eyes glancing down to his motions as he situated his prosthetic. Quickly glancing back up, she stuck her hand out and smiled warmly.
"Sally. I'm Sally. And this," she said as she stepped up beside Sy, scratching the top of his feathered head. Hopefully he didn't mind too much.
"Is Sy.The Shi’ar hatchling didn’t seem to mind having his plumage tousled, but he was distracted by the woman’s figure of speech. “
Two left...” the child uttered, before his head turned up sharply to give the human female a confused look. “
Wait, what?” Was this another form of metaphorical speech? “
How... like, you can’t... How could you have two left feet?” the child managed finally, his train of thought starting and stopping several times before he finally managed to get his brain and mouth working on the same page.
“
Ah, a regal, zen?” Ruben joked when the girl introduced herself and the child, shaking her offered hand with his gloved one. “
My name is Rhybén, but you can call me Ruben, since that is 'ow I spell it,” He introduced, noticing the child sputtering in confusement. At the question, he could not hold himself back from softly laughing at the innocence of a child's mind. “
It means being clumsy, chiot. It is, 'ow you say, a figuré of speech,” he explained to the best of his abilities. He remembered what it was like to come to America and have no idea what half the things people said even meant. “
It was joke. Since I have no left leg and zat makes me clumsy.”
Noticing that he shook her hand with the hand that was gloved, she made a mental note to maybe ask about it later. She was too damn curious for her own good.
"Ruben," She repeated as she tilted her head head bit and looked him over.
"You don't look like a Ruben, but the name fits ya oddly enough." Sy's confusion at the figure of speech caught her off guard and she burst out in laughter as she looked down at him. Ruben beat her to the explanation, but she couldn't contain her giggles.
"He's right," she began as she glanced at Ruben, then back to Sy.
"Having two left feet means you're just really clumsy." Kinda like me. "So, have y'all eaten yet? Don't know about y'all, but I'm pretty hungry." Sally glanced between the two, her smile warm and excited about the thought of getting something to eat, and with company no less.
He was Shi’ar and what was this linguistic nonsense? Why couldn’t the galaxy just speak Aerie? Or Kree. Well, actually, no, he’d done kinda horrible on his last Kree vocabulary test. “
What are Rubens supposed to look like?” the boy asked, the trend of being confused continuing with Sally’s remark. At least he understood the part about food. Human dietary customs were actually rather odd. The morning meal, breakfast, seemed to be associated with cooked chicken zygotes and seared pig flesh. Neither of which was all that appetizing to him. But their Cheerios were quite enjoyable. “
I have not,” the boy stated, answering the question that was asked.
Ruben just nodded and smiled at Sally's comment on his name. It would take too long and was not nearly interesting enough to explain the difference of use between the American name Ruben and his French one, which was quite common. He also neglected to mention that it was technically seen as a girl's name, even if it was technically unisex. This kid, however, was cracking him up without even meaning to and Ruben wanted to keep the little pup' around all the time. It was a good question, though. He had never met and American Ruben, so maybe they did look a certain way that was nothing like him. At the mention of food, his eyes pretty much lit up with little Christmas lights. He was starving. He had (accidentally) skipped dinner the night before and his stomach had a hole in it. After a second, his face flushed painfully red and with the most timid voice he had ever heard come out of his own mouth, he responded, “
I would need to... put on pants, first.”
Again, Sally couldn't contain her laughter at Sy. She scratched his feathered head again and wrapped her arm around him, pulling him against her side.
"Tell ya what, we'll go through all of the weird figures of speech later and get you up to date on them all, yeah?" He then mentioned that he hadn't eaten yet, and then so did Ruben.
Perfect! Sally then noticed Ruben blushing, looking nearly as red as a tomato. She was on the verge of asking if he was alright, when he mentioned having to put pants on. Jesus she had forgotten! Sally's jaw dropped, her eyes widening, and she gasped. Her eyes glanced down, then quickly back up. In a flash, she turned and felt her own cheeks burn with a blush.
"Right!! Right that... yeah that... that would be good." She cleared her throat and pointed to the hall.
"I'm just gonna wait out there... clean that mess up and stuff... yeah." With that, she hurried out the door, making sure she kept her eyes down as she turned to shut the door. Once she was in the hall, she couldn't help but laugh a little, slapping her hand over her face.
"Wow."The turn of the conversation to the subject of pants and propriety caused the boy to look down at his bare feet, which were sticking out from underneath the hem of the small-yet-large-to-him shirt that he wore. With that, the young Shi’ar realized that he’d seen Ruben fall out into the hall with pants. But also that the pants didn’t seem to be with them now. Turning around, the boy skipped past Sally as he ducked out through the door and found the trousers in the hall. Then picked those up and returned in the same bombastic fashion to deliver them. As he held the trousers out, the boy remarked, “
I feel like pants are optional for breakfast.”
“
I suppose you're right,” Ruben responded with a small chuckle as he accepted his pants back from the young boy, “
But, you know, me 'aving a fake leg is not something I want everyone to know,” Ruben did a final adjustment of his leg, so it sat perfectly before pushing the small, discreet button that caused the thing to pretty much suck itself onto his stump. He rose and tested the limb before finally going to the dresser. He pulled the shirt he had been wearing off over his head and grabbed a fresh one from a drawer. He pulled his pants from the hall on, even though he actually wanted to wear fresh ones, since he felt the child's act of kindness would go in vain if he did not wear them. He spent a moment locating the missing pant-leg on the bed, zipping it back on and eventually pulling on a pair of shoes. All of this took him about two minutes and he was out in the hall, still slightly flushed and still feeling griddy after sleeping in his clothes, but more than ready for breakfast. The child came out with him and he shut and locked the door behind them. “
I could really go for some waffles,” he said and started the trek down the hall.
While she waited for the other two to emerge from the room, Sally had gone to one of the nearby bathrooms and snatched a big handful of paper towels. In all honesty, she probably didn't need as many, as she had drank the drink a little less than half when she dropped it. So, she knelt down and picked the can up, setting it aside while she wiped up the loaded sugar water. Just as she had finished and stood, the two males came out. Sally glanced down at the spot where the mess had been and shrugged. It would be sticky when it dried, but at least it was cleaned up. Ruben mentioned waffles just as Sally tossed the trash into the bin, and smiled. Waffles actually sounded super delicious. Hell, most things sounded super delicious right now.
"Those sound amazing, actually. Some bacon, toast, hash browns, maybe a biscuit with honey inside..." Sally trailed off and grinned as she looked at both of her male companions as they made their way down the halls.
"We'll just see what they have there. If need be, I will cook it all. " Sally smiled at Ruben, then winked at Sy, her smile growing.
Humans. It was only a matter of time before seared pig meat was brought up in conversation relative to the breakfast meal. As the trio walked through the halls of the school, the feather-headed youth turned to look at the Sally lady, “
That sounds like a lot of food.” Seriously, people, a box of Cheerios was all that a warrior needed to start their day of intergalactic conquest. They didn’t even need milk! Cheerios were perfectly good gobbled up straight from the box. Why put forth the effort into actually preparing a meal? And, boy, did they prepare. Humans even handled raw meat! And cooked over open fires in some ritualized hunter-gatherer societal remnant known as grilling. It was a very primitive species.
Ruben laughed softly as Sally listed a whole menu worth of foods that she wanted to eat and Sy's comment on the sheer amount of it. “
You Americans are so odd with your food," he started, shaking his head, but smiling all the while to show that it was all said in good heart, “
You eat each meal like it should last all day.” After a moment of thought, he added, “
I had actually never had a waffle before I came to America, but ze croissants you 'ave 'ere are terrible,” at the last part, he made sure to lay his accent on thick and stick his nose up, but broke into a grin after and gave a little laugh.
Sally looked down at the boy and chuckled, nodding her head.
"It is alot of food. I can eat a lot," she said as she pat her belly. Her attention was then turned to Ruben when he spoke about how Americans were odd with their food. Yeah, sometimes they ate meals that took longer to cook than eat. It was weird. And then he surprised he by mentioning that he had never had a waffle before coming to America. His comment about the croissants making her laugh out loud.
"Yeah, I don't know. They're good to me, but I've never been to France and had the "good kind," she air quoted and looked over at him with a playful grin. Sally could play along.
The boy was quickly confused. “
What’s an American?” The young Shi’ar asked, curiously. Honestly, he was quite certain that humans, as a species, were constrained by the limits of their technology to this single planet. So was France just a different part of the Earth? And, if it was, how different could it be? This wasn’t the difference between Throneworld and Chandilar, this was two geographic points on the same orbital feature!
Ruben was just about to reply to Sally, his mouth already open and all. When the small boy asked his question. The noise that left him, rather than words, were far from charming and probably resembled the noise of a pig eating corn. After taking a moment to steady and stop himself from going into a full-blown giggle-fit, he raised his hands in front of him in a sort of defensive and dismissive way, but with a huge grin on his face simply said, “
I am not touching zat one!”
Eyes wide, Sally looked over at Ruben with a look that said "thanks for the help". Despite the look, she smiled.
"An American, is what I am, Sy. I was born in North America. You see," she began as she brought her hands up as if it would help her explain what she was trying to say.
"There are a bunch of different continents on this one planet, and almost all of them, contain smaller countries or states within them. There are a vast number of different kinds of people and cultures out there. Take Ruben," Sally glanced and motioned to him with her hand.
"He is from a country called France. His country is thousands of miles from here, America. Los Angeles, California, to be exact." Sally looked down at Sy then, hope filking her features.
"Does that make sense?"The boy just blinked. “
Nation-states?” The boy remarked, having to dig deep into his vocabulary to find the right term. Next to nobody in the intergalactic arena used a nation-state system of political identity. There were a handful of exceptions. At least, he thought there might be. “
It’s like your single planet is its own tiny galaxy,” the boy remarked.
Ruben was really enjoying this conversation. He had never really spent much time around children before, since Jacques was not exactly … child-friendly. If all of them were this amazing, he needed some ASAP. He had always been a social creature, so friendly interaction came easy to him, but he could not remember the last time he had so much
fun just talking to other people. Not since he had come to America, probably. “
I don't know enough about any galaxies to say,”, he admitted with a shrug, but his smile still on his face, “
What I know about space is limited to what I've seen on télévision.”
Sally nodded, agreeing with Ruben as far as galaxies went. And what she learned in school, but that still wasn't anything compared to what Sy knew. It mattered not. They could learn from him, and he could learn from them. It would definitely be interesting breakfast talk, that's for sure. So, on the trio went, making their way to the kitchen in search of breakfast. Their conversations continued well into the kitchen and throughout breakfast. Ruben and Sally laughing at Sy, while he quietly munched on Cheerios straight from the box. After he got his Cheerios, he pretty much went silent. It was all about his food. Ruben and Sally however, continued their conversations while they ate waffles. Ruben had even gone as far as dipping his in his coffee, causing Sally to make a face in disgust. The pair seemed to hit it off quite well despite the odd meeting. He was friendly, had a good sense of humor, and an accent. Plus, he was cute. Him and Sy both were, but for completely different reasons. All in all, the day had started out quite well. She only hoped it stayed that way
