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[ Is it okay, to just ask her if she's alright? For all that being a proactive communicator about feelings was... difficult for Beatrice, she was really considering it. Mikasa did not look okay.

Until the maggots came out. She was used to all kinds of grisly sights but she recoils. ]

O-Oh... Oh, yes, of course! Bait.

[ She takes the rod, smiling uneasily. ]

[Mikasa just grunted, making sure Beatrice had the rod.]

We don't have bait like this back home... But you just grab one and put the hook through it's butt. [And she did so. After reaching in, grabbing one to show Beatrice. Showing the maggot a bit closer, how one end was slightly pointed. The rounder end was the one she just shoved the hook through.

Then she stared, waiting for Beatrice to do the same.]

[ The witch reaches out, takes a maggot, then feels it squirm and drops it with a horrified shriek. Some witch she was. So much for the boisterous young woman that cheerfully talked about gruesome topics. She'd cleaned up a lot of horrible messes at the mansion, but she's never had to touch anything like that. Indeed, if any mess had gotten to the point of having maggots, she could only imagine the sort of fury Natsuhi would have shown. ]

Ah, w-well! The, ah, the sun got in my eyes.

[ Absolutely nobody is buying that. She fairly squirms with embarrassment. ]

[Dropping the maggot? Understandable. Some of them were wiggly little bastards and there was a nack to holding them just tight enough. Too loose and they'd slip free, too tight and they'd...Well, they'd be squished.

It was the screech that made Mikasa pause. Silently staring as the seconds pass. But hey, at least Beatrice her undivided attention for once in this trip.]

...Right. [Doubt!] There's plenty more, it's normal to lose some. [Had to throw a few into the water to attract the fish, so with that thought. Mikasa grabbed a handful and just tossed them into the water. There, that might draw some fish into their baited rods.]

Um...Are you going to try again? [Giving the tub a little shake.]

[ It wasn't a screech! Beatrice had for more dignity- okay, no. She raises her fists to her chest, discomfort plain on her face. She takes a deep breath, wringing out her hands. ]

Of course. Perfectly normal.

[ She wasn't going to give in. It was a small creature, just an infant. It couldn't harm her. What was so terrible about it, outside of an association with death and decay? Being afraid of that now was quite hypocritical of her. Especially given the things she'd done in some of the fragments.

Yes. She knows how to handle this. Somebody else is doing it. Not me. ]

I certainly will! I won't let the little wretches get the better of me.

[ There's a vague distance in her eyes as she pulls out another maggot, and calmly puts a hook through its belly. Mercilessly, without flinching. She could be the witch in the truest sense for this. And then, put her to rest. ]

Come! Let us bring forth the treasures of the waves! Perhaps we'll even catch a mermaid. I hear that they make high-class sashimi.

[ It's not a perfect job, but the maggot was on there, at least. ]

[It was fine. Just...stabbing a baby bug in just the right way. So it'd be firmly stuck to the hook, but still, be alive to wiggle. It sounded so bad when accurately described...

But it was what it was.

And Mikasa's eyes slide shut, slowly blinking as Beatrice started going. What the hell is sashimi?]

You'll scare them away... [Despite the words, it wasn't scolding. Just a simple comment. That was so much energy, but... It was kind of nice. Something that distracted her from the quiet of her mind. At least for now.] ...And I think we'd get arrested if we killed and ate a mermaid.

[Just calmly talking about murder-canibalism.]

[ She had seen live seafood prepared in the kitchens, so taking a life like that wasn't necessarily the problem. She was almost surprised that she still had something to be squeamish about, after all of the gruesome things she'd done to her victims. ]

I'm disappointed, you can't recognize my sense of humor by now?

[ Despite the attempted bravado, she follows that up with a nervous laugh. It had been a spur of the moment comment, an attempt to lighten the mood, but she should have recognized this girl's blunt, serious attitude. Maybe it was bad, that she could casually say such horrible things. ]

I want to eat fish! Which, ah... I'll be quieter.

[That only got another huff.]

I never know with people here. Might be normal where you're from... [Another shrug. She'd heard of a few places like, places with monster people who ate others. Mikasa's own world was one of them, she even knew multiple people who'd eaten another.

...Made it a bit hard to take it as a joke. But she wasn't even remotely upset, that kind of humor was normal back home.]

I'm glad though... Only have a small knife.

[Was that a bad joke of her own? Maybe, she just kept gazing out at the water as she tossed her hook into the water.]

[ She had desensitized herself to brutality during that infinite October 4th and 5th. But it was only a tool. Only a means of attempting to summon the miracle she desired, even if it was a foolish effort in the end. ]

Ah, must I pierce my elegant and gruesome illusion? [Yes, Beato, your jokes scare people. ] Very well! I just buy my food from the store. Or summon it forth from the waves, I suppose.

[ She grins at Mikasa's joke, and follows her lead, casting her hook into the water. ]

Hah, what ominous words.

[At least the mood had lightened albeit it wasn't by much. But at least Mikasa wasn't just keeping her stony silence. But now all they had to do was wait.]

That's more mundane than I thought. [She kinda figured the other woman was some rich eccentric with how she talked. Not that Mikasa had that much experience with such people. Everyone she knew was varying levels of poor.] I only brought what we couldn't grow. [Though she'd not been a farmer for a long time now.

No comment on the eerie joke though.]

[ Something was still clearly weighing on her mind. But Beatrice suspects it wasn't the kind of thing she could do much about. So she waits. How funny for a witch that hates boredom to do something that consisted mostly of waiting, but there was a pleasant sort of focus that took over the mind. Maybe that was alleviating a bit of that weight for Mikasa too. ]

Magic is often found in the details and elaborations. You can spin the simplest of things into an Endless world. [ A rich eccentric wasn't quite wrong, at least for a couple miserable years. ] Well, at least with my magic. But even humans can learn the base form of that magic.

... I don't think I could. [Learn a base form of magic. Something like that hadn't existed back home, if it had then it'd been beyond her.] I'm not good at that kind of... [She waved a hand, letting it flop slightly.] Artsy stuff. [Ah yes, 'details and elaborations' were artsy.]

My friends tell me I'm bad at lying... Even if the adults believed me. [Though it'd been several years since she'd needed to lie.]

Perhaps. Not everybody takes an interest in the pursuit of artifice and illusions. But if you did, certainly passion would transform your desires into magic.

[ But if she had no interest in it, little more could be said. ]

Nevertheless, creating life from the earth is a magic of its own, I should think.

[Okay, that got a snort.] So I'd be shit at it... [So bluntly. But really... She had very little in the way of passions. She was a boring person according to some of the people she'd met.

Still, Beatrice did managed to get wring a wry smile out of her.]

You think that? A lot of people back home thought the farmers were cowards. Even though everyone needs food and the shortages...

[She'd never seen any shame in being a farmer. But many had.]

Perhaps, perhaps. [ Unimaginative people did exist after all. But there's no judgement in her voice. ]

But that sentiment is utter foolishness. Without those "cowards," nobody else would be alive. It is those most basic forms of labor that give rise to human civilization, and all of the varieties of culture.

[ She could sympathize, as somebody who had been meant to feel like invisble, barely even a person when she was working as a servant for a wealthy family. But without her, their mansion would be nothing more than some oversized filthy shack. ]

You'd have thought that... [It was what Mikasa had always thought. She gave a shrug.] But my friends wanted to fight. A lot of the others just wanted a high rank so they could live in the safer areas. Even though all the farms were outside of the central districts.

[Really, Mikasa was a little interested to know what the rich folk's plan was for food was if Wall Rose had fallen. All the money in the world couldn't help if there was nothing to buy.]

Take it, things are different where you're from?

[ Mikasa's world sounds absolutely hellish, really. Life had dealt her a brutal enough hand that she almost doesn't want to think about living through war and hunger on top of that. ]

They are. When and where I come from, though life is not easy, but most have enough to eat.

A load of us woke up here at the same time... It was strange... [She sighed, falling silent again as she focused on her fishing. Checking the floaters.

Now it was just her.]

[ Oh... she's able to read the implications. Right now, that's what terrifies her perhaps more than anything. If she vanished, it was hard to think of how others might mourn her absence. But it would be far worse to be left all alone. Again. ]

...Everything's strange here. [ She stares out at the water, hoping a foolhardy fish will break the melancholy. ]

It really is... [And the silence one out, Mikasa not having anything else to say.

But then they got a bite. Or rather, Beato got a bite. The float bobbing and dipping under the water. Small splashes of water being kicked up as the fish pulled.]

You got one... [No shit.]

Aha! [ She did it!

The witch starts pulling on the rod, and soon enough some kind of trout surfaces from the water, scales gleaning in the sun. ]

Ah, do I reel it in?!

Yes. [Then it was time for the awkward part. The part Mikasa wasn't even sure how to describe. She wasn't the best with describing things at the best of times, especially not feelings.]

But don't be too rough, the line'll snap if you are... But it'll get free if you give it slack.

But some people like it when I'm rough! [ That dirty joke deployed, Beatrice makes a valiant attempt at reeling in the fish, yanking the line back with jerky suddenness. She has no idea what she's doing, and it shows when the fish escapes after a few seconds. ]

Accursed beast! You shall be in my cookpot soon enough!

[The joke......Goes completely over Mikasa's head. Didn't even register as a joke, let alone something dirty. Congratulations Beato, you have found The Densest.

She just sighed.]

I don't think that one will risk it again... They're not that dumb. [They weren't smart, but they did have some sense of survival. But also...] Do you know how to gut a fish then?

[It was messy.]

[ This is going to be an unstoppable force vs. immovable object kind of relationship, won't it? ]

And in doing so it only brings ruin upon all of it's be-scaled nation! Come, my thalassian friend, let us become the avatars of piscine death!

[ She reaches for the tub of maggots, and this time has much less difficulty affixing one, and casting into the water. ]

Anyway, I've seen it done. I'm certain I could disembowel any fish easily enough!

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