Emotional Anchors Aweigh

[viruswithshoes]

When Toulon wasn't encouraging children to take up the ultra-dangerous occupation of dismantling explosives he made prosthetic limbs, mostly for children that fell prey to those explosives. It was slow work with only one functioning arm. In order to make limbs for other people he needed to make a limb for himself, it was a vicious cycle. Though it was depressing, the previously four-armed man was preoccupied by thoughts of his newly employed dwarf navigator. She had been acting as a tiny but somehow stronger replacement for his missing arms by doing little things for him and part of him liked it.

The little blue dwarf gave the seven foot man a feeling of safety and comfort that was rarely felt given his frequent night terrors and general lack of sleep. He could have rebuilt at least one new arm in the time he was relying on Albedo but motivation was scarce when having more arms meant less Albedo.

The doctor of prosthetics sighed, straightened his white lab coat and glasses, smoothed out his twin-braided beard, sighed once more and almost knocked on the door of Albedo's temporary quarters. He got a little further on the second try. On the third he managed a weak knock against the wood. By then he'd gotten so frustrated with himself that he finally managed a real knock that would actually garner the attention of someone inside, as intended.

A bleary-eyed woman holding a mostly empty rum bottle in her left hand answered making Toulon feel intensely awkward.
"Is Albedo here?"
"Albedo! Captain's here!"


OOC:

Post 1

Toulon 00fff3
Henry Frankrugger a3e78a

Fox

[Fox]

The first thing Albedo had done when they’d gotten to the ship was fuss at Toulon for not having spare limbs prepped in advance. But, really, she felt guilty about that now. She’d only grilled him the once, but she was worried that it had made him… depressed. The main character shouldn’t do that to the love interest. She’d been trying to make it up to him by helping him out more and more around the ship, but… it was almost like he didn’t want to build more arms. Surely, she hadn’t hurt his feelings that much, right?

“Mmm…” she mumbled to herself for the umpteenth time.

They’d arrived on Colt not long ago at a town that Albedo didn’t remember seeing her first time here. Well, the old geezer had said that new towns popped up and died out fairly quickly on the island due to the ‘mysterious happenings’ - whatever those were. He hadn’t really told her much when she pressed him for information. Which was weird. Because he’d been open with literally everything else, even going so far as to tell her his dream. Which was - of course - to find the river that led up to the Star Ocean called the Milky Way.

“Mmmmm…”

Albedo rubbed her temples, frowning as she laid on a matchbox bed placed delicately on a shelf. Honestly, she was sharing this bunk with someone else, so she’d wanted to take up as little space as possible, and honestly, she felt better feeling like the room was giant when she had to share it with someone. She, of course, jolted to her feet, tail fluffed up when there was a knock on the door.

“I-I’m here!”

Her roomie answered the door, but Albedo bounced over onto her shoulder almost immediately.

“Hi Toulon! Er, I mean! Captain!”

---

Albedo | #6082b6 | Post Count: 1

[viruswithshoes]

Doctor Toulon Kuroko once disarmed a bomb surgically implanted inside of Frankrugger his orderly and tailor, but found leaving with Albedo to spend time together much more nerve wracking.
Since Toulon rarely slept he had a surplus of time to worry and second guess himself. Would his narrow black tie make him look too skinny and highlight his longer than average arms...all four of them? And his hair? Up in it's current top knot pinned by a scalpel and soldering iron? By the time Albedo appeared on her hungover roomate's shoulder all consciousness including self-consciousness disappeared from Toulon's mind.
“Hi Toulon! Er, I mean! Captain!”
"Miss Navigator...Albedo...areyoureadytoseeyourfriend."
He paused and sighed and repeated himself at a less frantic pace.

The currently one-armed man bent over in a deep bow for Albedo to take her familiar place on his head either within or sitting upon his top knot. It was that or take her chances with his two coat pockets which either held candy or tools.

He tried not to nervously play with with the two braids of his beard while in his bow and rose when he felt Albedo's now familiar presence atop his head. Albedo's anesthesiologist roommate almost spit up her rum chuckling at the sight of the tiny drawf atop the seven foot tall man next to the scalpel and soldering iron that almost looked like steering levers.
"You look like you're driving a mech."
Toulon felt super cool for that one moment. The smirking woman almost added a snide comment about her Captain being the most awkward and least cool mech ever but let the verbal jab when she saw Toulon's giddy grin. "Shall we go? Lead the way, Miss Navigator."

The Coffin Cheater, sailing vessel of The Black Cross was docked at Brimstown and given protection in exchange for entertaining the children with puppet shows/mine clearing instruction as well as providing free prosthetic limbs to anyone that desired one. That last promise gave Toulon a great excuse to not work on his own arms and lean on Albedo longer than was necessary.

The recently risen sun still struggled to heat the town of Brimstone but nerves caused Toulon to feel warm and then worry about sweating too much. Conversation seemed like a good distraction from what he assumed as a sweaty hell inside of his hair.
"How are your living accommodations? We can easily find you your own space. I know that some of my medical staff can be.." He searched for a nice way to call them unhinged party animals when they weren't working. "Exuberant. They play as hard as they work...sometimes harder."
He had to sigh again at how banal his conversation was and followed up with another question after Albedo's response.
"Tell me about your friend. How did you meet?"

OOC: Post 2

[Fox]

“Yep! Let’s rescue the princess! If the princess was a grizzled, crazy, old man!” As Toulon bowed, Albedo hopped up on top of his head, using his topknot as a seat cushion, albeit a slightly dangerous one with the scalpel sticking out. She crossed her legs and hummed, taking in the sights as Toulon stood up straight. Yup, it looked like she remembered it. Even better, she knew where she was headed from here despite the small town being new.

“A mech?” Albedo’s eyes sparkled a little at the comment, pushing down the soldering iron like a forward lever. “Off the ship! Toward those mountains over there! See the ones that kinda look like a thumbs up?”

That was a decent enough landmark that Albedo figured that Toulon wouldn’t super need her direct and explicit guidance from there on. “Oh, they’re nice! I wouldn’t mind a little house though. I know some humans have little wooden ones for their dolls? Something like that would be amazing! I dunno if anyone is good with woodworking though.”

Albedo kicked her feet idly as he asked about Wizzy. She rubbed her chin with a tiny hand as she thought back on it. “Well… I washed up here - shipwrecked, y’know? I saw Wizzy’s light in the distance and ran for it! But! I thought he was a zombie or something so I screamed, and he thought I was a monster so he screamed and fainted,” Albedo grinned at that, “He’s a big ole scaredy cat.”

“After that, uh… well, I hung out. He was an old mentor type and taught me a bunch about the stars and stuff. I figured he had to have a quest for me and all. Turns out! He was sick! So he gave me a bunch of stuff! Even his telescope! I put it in the hold until we find a good place for it, by the way. It’s pretty big, for lookin’ at stars and stuff. Kinda weird that he’d give me that… but whatever!”

Albedo shoved that matter aside completely as they walked through the small town. Something occurred to her briefly. “Oh yeah. Wizzy told me there’s a lot of noxious gas… or something bad on this island that makes it difficult to live here? People get sick and die and stuff. We should probably warn these people before we go. We should be okay as long as we don’t stay in the stuff for too long.”

---

Post Count: 2

[viruswithshoes]

I wouldn’t mind a little house though. I know some humans have little wooden ones for their dolls? Something like that would be amazing! I dunno if anyone is good with woodworking though.”

Toulon tried not to dip his head as he sighed. It was disheartening that there wasn't a direct request to make her a house. He imagined her cute little voice both meekly asking for, and then demanding her make her a cute little house.
Suddenly, the black haired man with a dwarf in his top knot wondered if he could get some glass on the way to The Coffin Cheater so Albedo could have a bay window that looked out to the sea. He also made a mental not to make his personal tailor Henry make some little curtains.

How to approach such a situation, though? It was strange to offer to build someone a house. He'd seen no such advice in any of the two and a half dating manuels he had read. That novel about a man reincarnating as his love interest's house wasn't helpful either.

"I...I can built...build you a house. I make my own puppets after all."
He recognized that as the type of line that should not be said by any sort of manly protagonist. Book stores rarely featured stories of shapely and strong puppeteers sweeping bored housewives off of their feet.
Doctor's though...as a Doctor Toulon felt he had a chance.

Albedo's mention of toxic gas shifted the doctor's mind from building a dollhouse to building a gasmask. It might make a good way to hide if he ever attained a bounty, unlikely as that was. It would also keep him from being knocked out by his own anesthetic attacks.

Toulon knocked on the door that Albedo pointed out.
"Mister Wizzy! I'm a doctor." He cringed and sighed at himself for being so vague. I work with prosthetics...but I don't think you need a new arm of leg. Um, I'm not much of a infec-"
Toulon cut off his expulsion of self deprecation when it seemed like the old man lying flat on his back on the floor was unconscios.

The doctor adjusted the man slightly, just enough to recognize the stiffness of rigor mortis and smell of decay he previously blamed on the local gasses.

"Miss Albedo...I'll have to get Wizzy dressed. Could you wait outside for thirty minutes?"

Lying to Albedo seemed right at the moment but given his last few seconds of life experience, Toulon wanted to punch his seconds younger self in the face.
Hard.

It was a terrible way to stall for time as undressing Wizzy and redressing him into cleaner, less dead smelling clothes. There was a dark blue kimono beautifully stitched in a way that made it seem the old man wore water currents on his sleeves that threatened to drip onto the floor and drown them all.

With a surgeon's skill and the same straight razor Toulon used to keep his one eyebrow into two separate ones, to shave the beard that had grown along with the corpse's fingernails.
Wizzy still looked dead, but in a less mentally impactful way.
"He's ready, Albedo."

Post 3

[Fox]

“Really?! You can?! Would you?! That would be amazing! Hooking up the plumbing might be weird though…” Albedo tapped her chin thoughtfully. If Toulon was building it, she probably wouldn’t have to worry about anything. Was it taking advantage of him to ask him to do this for her? Hmm. Did… did she care? Hm. While Albedo was debating this moral quandary, she pointed Toulon through the desert and out of town. It took a little while, but eventually they came upon a door of a little house carved out of the mountainside. It had probably originally been a cave that Wizzy had renovated.

Toulon knocked on the door, but there was no answer. Hm. Weird. Wizzy never locked his door though, so it was easy for Toulon to just open it and step inside. The first thing that hit Albedo was the smell. She covered her nose and mouth with a hand, wincing at the smell. What was that? She didn’t have much time to process as Toulon asked her to wait outside. “Uh… sure.”

And wait she did. Albedo stayed a little away from the door so that she didn’t have to smell the bad smell. Was… was Wizzy dead? No, no. He couldn’t be dead. She’d gotten a doctor right away! The first quest was always a success! She couldn’t fail. When Toulon called her back in, Albedo transformed into her hybrid form so she could walk in and see Wizzy for herself. He was… he wasn’t. How? She hadn’t even been gone long. Glancing around the room to distract herself for a moment, she spotted a letter on Wizzy’s usually messy work desk. The desk was completely clear of its usual mess of maps and papers. Only a letter with a wax seal and her name remained.

Albedo picked it up, opening it up with a claw and stepping outside to get better light. It was… a final goodbye to her, explaining that he’d known that he was dying, and hadn’t wanted her to be there when it happened. She flopped down outside onto her butt and curled her tail around herself, trying to make sense of things.

“But I was supposed to save you…”

---

Albedo | #6082b6 | Post Count: 3

[viruswithshoes]

Toulon had flashbacks to seeing the dead body of someone he knew for the first time. He was eleven years old and just starting to assist in surgeries in a small ways by organizing instuments and conveying them to the surgeon.

Dr. Kumari, his adopted mother, as he would later, specialized in limb removal and prosthetics. A child Toulon's age arrived on a gurney bleeding atop a sheet and left bloodless and below a sheet. That was Toulon's first look at death. The doctor that taught him medicine unintentionally taught the confused boy how to cope by cutting her shoulder with a scalpel he handed her.
"You're not winning next time," She seemed to say to no one but the boy Toulon knew she was talking to Death.

Toulon never cut himself, he had his own self destructive habits, but he kept his mentor's personal rivalry towards the grim reaper.

Toulon's lowered his head in guilt as if placing it upon a chopping block. He had expected himself to save Wizzy. To be a medical hero and earn the affections of a cute dwarf.
"I'm utterly awful," Toulon muttered to himself.

Most of Toulon's experiences with death were in a war zone where the bodies of the formerly living were either stepped over and searched for food or water to keep from becoming like them. The closest thing to sentimentality with the gang of soldiers, many children, was speaking well of the fallen and dedicating their next scrap of food or drink of water to them.

Toulon purposely sat across from Albedo. Getting next to her seemed too much and disappearing seemed worse.

"Did he have any last wishes? I'm, I'm sorry I couldn't save him." Another thought of that first corpse he'd seen as a child and the whimsicle thought he had of an island hospital, or perhaps a massive medical ship to sail the seas while keeping the grim reaper at bay.

He gently reached out his remaining arm to Albedo across from him but left it up to her if she wanted to take it. Too many things had been put on thos tiny shoulders already. He wouldn't force his hand upon her.

"After we perform whatever funeral rites he wanted let's go get drunk and ice cream. Ice cream and liquor go good with grief.

Post 4

[Fox]

It didn’t make sense. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go for a first quest. Sure, the mentor figure can die, but… not like this, right? Albedo thumped her tail against the ground unhappily. What kind of hero started their story out like this? Failing the person that she was supposed to save… it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t how she wanted her story to start. It was supposed to be a thrilling tale of close calls and romantic encounters and adventure! She wasn’t actually supposed to lose! Albedo heaved a sigh thick with all of her twisted feelings as Toulon sat across from her.

To his credit, he was playing the part of the love interest perfectly. Already trying to comfort her in her dark moments. Albedo rolled her shoulders in a half-hearted shrug and thunked her head against the wooden wall of Wizzy’s old home. “No, I mean. Not really. He just wanted to say goodbye. I guess he knew this was coming? I just thought…”

Albedo paused, waving a claw in the air.

“I just thought he really believed that I’d save him? I dunno…”

It was only as she buried her face in her arm that she noticed Toulon’s outstretched hand. She hesitated for a moment, but reached out and took it, shrinking back into her tiny form and leaving Wizzy’s letter in the dusty red dirt.

“Y-yeah! Ice cream and booze!” Albedo said, although she wasn’t sure that she deserved such treats after such a crushing defeat. She wanted to do something heroic. But, it was kinda hard to do something heroic when there was no one in need of saving.

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Albedo | #6082b6 | Post Count: 4

[viruswithshoes]

Toulon, despite his line of work as a surgeon, never dealt with dead bodies. In hospitals they were carted away by someone else and on the battlefield the living took precedence over the dead and were usually left after anything of value was taken from their remains.

When there was downtime and temporary safety Toulon and the child soldiers who taught him everything he knew about war would find something good. A couple of bottles of clean water. Maybe some candy. Sometimes left over food. That water. That candy. That food. It was as much for the departed as the living. It was a reminder that they were alive and that could change at a moment's notice.

Toulon gestured with his upper right hand and his geisha puppet came to life and extended the katana from her arms and unleashed several air slashes at the ground. Swords weren't the best shovels but he had no shovel puppets.
While the remote controlled puppet slashed open a grave the man controlling the puppet reached into the pocket of white coat and pulled out a sweet, hard candy almost the size of Albedo's head and held it up to her.
"I have no liquor or ice cream but maybe this will do for now?"

Though it took no real physical exertion operating his swordswoman puppet, the movement itself took some concentration and the rest was of his stamina was taken up by performing back to back air incisions. Puppetry and surgery were one thing but swordplay was still something of an effort.

In the silent time Toulon took to dig the messy grave by proxy his white clad puppet looked less like a glamourous geisha and more like a ditch digger at the end of a long shift.
"If I don't want to dig anymore graves I need to get better at saving lives,"
he muttered to himself.

The mentally exhausted surgeon squatted down by the pile of dirt he created, grabbed a handful and gently let it go onto Wizzy's body then closed his eyes.
I'll come faster, next time...and I'll try to..." Toulon paused and adjusted his glasses, then his tie and tried to think of some sort of promise about Albedo that he was certain he could not keep.
"I'll try, okay?"

A flood of 'If Onlys' surged through his mind. If only he was more of a general practioner he could have been of more use. If only he'd specialized in elder care. If only he had an ambulance as a means of conveying patients to himself or vice versa.
That last scenario seemed the most feasible as it wouldn't require taking on a whole new field of study.

An ambulence would take a lot of money but not as much as the hospital he tried to build earlier. Toulon stood silently over Wizzy's grave for a few more minutes before snapping out of his obsessive fugue state.
Toulon dealt with grief in multiple unhealthy ways, the most constructive of which was trying to think of ways to prevent more death.
"Let's go have a wake."

Post 5

[Fox]

Albedo took hold of the comparatively giant piece of candy and contemplated her reflection in its shiny, metallic wrapper. She glanced up at Toulon from where she was sitting on his shoulder as he muttered under his breath. Of course, being so close to his face, she could hear every word. Hm, but it wasn’t his fault, was it? She was the hero. Maybe if she had been faster. If she hadn’t taken so long. But it definitely was not Toulon’s fault. She stood up and gently placed her tiny hand on his cheek.

“It isn’t your fault, Toulon,” Albedo said, softly, but firmly. It might not have been anybody’s fault, but Albedo felt responsible. Guilty, even, since Toulon had been so excited to help. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to go. If anything, she should be the one trying to make it up to him. Albedo considered a variety of ways to try and cheer him up, but she realized that she didn’t actually know Toulon all that well yet. She didn’t know how to cheer him up.

“O-Okay…”

Albedo settled back on Toulon’s shoulder and held onto his shirt as she braced herself for him to start the long walk back to town.

“Um… Toulon? Can you tell me about yourself?”

Albedo was not smart enough to be able to phrase that question in a way that didn’t suggest that she knew nothing about Toulon aside from the fact that he was a doctor and his name was Toulon.

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Albedo | #6082b6 | Post Count: 5

[viruswithshoes]

“Um… Toulon? Can you tell me about yourself?”

The surgeon with the double braided beard was tempted to shove a piece of candy into his mouth to have a valid excuse to say silent and therefore not embarrass himself further.
He didn't succumb to the temptation because avoiding embarrassment was no way to woo a woman of any size.

He looked at his cybernetic arm which started out as a cybernetic hand which started out as nothing.
I think my first memory was realising I didn't have hands." He gestured with his head to the three stumbs where three of his four cybernetic arms had been.
"Maybe I'm overcompensating now," He said with a self-deprecating smile.

"I was found on a ship of war refugees. I don't know who my parents were. I was taken in by a doctor who made me my first set of prosthetic hands. It took a long, long time to get them to work. The doctor's husband was a puppeteer and he taught me the craft as a means of physical rehabilitation."

Toulon waved the last one of his normally four cybernetic arms around the the slit mouthed geisha puppet went from walking beside the surgeon and the dwarf to twirling around them in a dance with her filthy white kimono adorned with a large black cross on the back, fluttered in the wind.

"I love working with my hands because I don't take them for granted. Puppetry, surgery, bomb defusing..." As cheesy as he knew it was, the spectacled doctor could not resist showing Albedo the back of his one steel hand and then making a card appear between his index and middle finger.
"Card tricks. I love them all because I can vaguely remember not having hands."

He cleared his throat. "I studied as much as I could because I couldn't wait to get out on the sea and start helping people." When it came up, the next phase of Toulon's life seemed like something he wanted to gloss over.
"I ended up working for some..." He didn't want to label the people he knew then as smugglers and criminals. "Merchants and landed on an island that's probably still at war. Terrible place, but that's where I met Big Dap."

Toulon couldn't supress his smile at speaking the name. "Dap was my mentor. She taught me to disable explosives and surive in a war zone. Other people taught me things but she was probably the most responsible for me growing up...even though she was about ten at the time."

The speaker groaned in an exagerated manner. "Sorry. You probably meant for this to be a light conversation. It's just...every time someone dies I think about the past and the future and how heavy they are."

"Anyway...since I was surrounded by child soldiers all the time who led such harsh lives I keep a pocketful of a candy at all times."

One of these days I'm going to build a giant hospital so one has to go without limbs or life saving surgery." At that moment he thought of his failure to build a hospital on the very island he stood.
"Maybe I'm thinking too big." He shyly grinned and immediately felt like an idiot. For all his knowledge and experience, flirting was still an impenetrable mystery.
"In short, if you can say one thing about me, say I try to be helpful."

The skin around his beard, to say his face, grew red as he spoke.
"Let's make a trade. What about you? Where are you from. What do you do? How...how's your husband or boyfriend?"
Toulon regretted he only had one steel fist with which to punch himself.


OOC: Post 6

[Fox]

Albedo listened attentively. This was important backstory information, after all! Really, it was all pretty dark depressing stuff. She supposed love interests also had their serious struggles. Hm. How could she help lift those burdens and save him from them? He had a really good and sweet dream too, perfect for a love interest. When Toulon expressed some doubts about his dreams, she hopped off his shoulder, rapidly transforming into her large hybrid form and did a little spin.

“Not big enough you mean! Why make a stationary hospital when you can make a traveling hospital ship fleet?! And don’t you worry, if things are too heavy, I can lift ‘em up!” Albedo flexed her arm, “It’ll be light and breezy so long as I’m here!”

Then, the topic turned back to Albedo herself. Huh, she hadn’t shared her backstory, had she? She’d been so focused on her quest that it completely slipped her mind. Albedo scratched her head with a claw, before putting a hand on Toulon’s shoulder and shrinking back down to her much more portable size. She plopped down on his shoulder and rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

“Well, you’re my love interest, Toulon,” Albedo stated plainly as if it were a fact. How else would one explain the inexplicable tension between them? Silly Toulon.

“Oh! Wait! If you’re asking if there’s been any other love interests, then no! Not really. I only just set off on my adventure after all.”

She put a tiny fist to her chest and smiled a little smugly.

“I am a hero, you know! So, I come from pretty humble beginnings. My village was pretty much like any other Dwarf village. We tucked ourselves into the nooks and crannies of human buildings. We cleaned at night when the humans were asleep and the humans would leave offerings of berries and other stuff.”

“I lived in a lie… lye… library?” Albedo was pretty sure that was the word, “A place with a lot of human books! I really liked reading about human heroes and their adventures. Slaying dragons! Saving damsels! I always wanted to be that one day. So Felix taught me how to navigate - oh, Felix was my first human friend - but he didn’t really want me to leave. I dunno why, I can handle myself.”

Albedo shrugged. Not really important anymore.

“Anyway! I wanna become a legendary hero! You know, the kind that people write stories about! The kind of hero people never forget about…”

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Albedo | #6082b6 | Post Count: 6