return to paradisa

[secondchances]

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[secondchances]

"Hands off until the kitchen!"

Which means she's power walking down the damn stairs. Keep up, Ezio.

[assassino]

He laughs and follows. He can’t see her butt because of the cape, though, so he catches up fast.

“Race you there?”

[secondchances]

She perks up at that.

"I thought saying that would be too immature, but... don't think I'll take it easy on you just because we fooled around!"

Which is her accepting the challenge, if her taking off like someone left the oven on is any indication.

[assassino]

He laughs; he doesn’t mind, he’s a slow start anyway but he is good with endurance and tight corners. Ezio runs after her. There’s a thrill in figuring they won’t turn a corner and run into someone, or break their stride for anything but their destination.

She’s damn quick, though. Lighter, is his excuse.

[secondchances]

It feels a bit like breaking the rules on a school campus, somehow. It's all fun and games and Steph keeps the lead she sneakily took by charging ahead, but the speed leaves her once her feet hit the floor of the lobby and she stops a good twelve feet from the kitchen doors.

She thinks about that skeleton upstairs.

"Maybe a real race, later," she says, only needing a moment to catch her breath and lifting her hand to make sure he doesn't decide to barrel on in. "Let's be careful. Gentlemen first."

[assassino]

He might’ve just gone for it if she hadn’t raised a hand, but he stops behind her when she does. Quite tightly behind her, too, nearly enough to bump her, but he just touches a hand to her lower back, rounds her and goes on ahead at a walk.

“Careful,” he agrees, and he strolls in anyway, hands at his sides in case he needs his blades for some reason.

[secondchances]

Steph expected a lot of things, but a stench that nearly knocks her on her ass is not one of them.

"Oh, ugh," she chokes out, covering her nose. It's stuffy and smells like a fridge that hasn't been cleaned out in forever. She supposes that might come from the fridge, door cracked open, and she bravely trudges forward to slam it shut. It doesn't help much, but it gives her some peace of mind that nothing is going to crawl out.

"It's like a tomb of rotten lunch meat."

She has no idea if the smell indicates a time frame or if the doors did indeed seal this place like a tomb.

And there's the poor microwave, scorched, and some long dried goop seeping out from under the door. Why did people always do that?

"Someone blew that thing up for the last time..."

[assassino]

Ezio is no stranger to crypts and tombs, where even if the bodies are long rotted away, the dark and moist caverns flourish with terrible smells just the same. He wanders through the kitchen and steps into the pantry, finding it somewhat similar, with loafs of bread so far past moulding that they've hardened over like stone. When he steps back out, he looks at the microwave and doesn't even recognize it for a moment.

And then, dawning realization: "Oh. The micro-round."

He makes a little spinning gesture with a finger.

[secondchances]

That's cute. Steph grins behind her hand.

"Micro-wave. Close."

There are cans, at least, on the counter. Steph grabs one of the smaller ones--tomato paste?--and gives it a shake. She frowns, looking at them.

"Well... we've got some food. Canned stuff lasts forever, right? Whoever was in here last didn't like vegetables or strange canned meats. And blew up the microwave, probably."

[assassino]

"Microwave," he repeats. He will forget again soon, because he never uses the thing. He possibly blew it up himself once by leaving a spoon in a mug. He will remember the arcing lightning, at least.

He joins her at the counter to inspect what she's found. Canned food is preserved, to his knowledge, but he has never been certain of how long. He sorts through them and decides:

"I will starve before I eat this."

Canned ravioli. Not Italian at all.

[secondchances]

"Oh, I'll eat that," Stephanie says, serious. A staple of her childhood. "But hey, this is a good sign! There's stuff here. Nothing fresh, but stuff..."

She trails off as she opens cabinets, wandering away some.

"There's some dried beans... a jar of pickles? Does that even keep that long? Vinegar, right? Gross."

More of a question to herself than him. She doesn't expect an answer, so she asks him a better question.

"Do you think the city is better or worse than this?"

[assassino]

“Vinegar is good, it will preserve food longer — something you and I are in dire need of,” he replies anyway. “The city may be better. Often it was not impacted at all by the Castle’s nonsense, wasn’t it?”

This place is very unsexy, he decides.

[secondchances]

It's so unsexy, Stephanie has completely forgotten their previous shenanigans.

"Right. Guess we'll mosey on down to the city and see the damage. We can leave this stuff here, and depending on which place is better stocked, figure out where to bunker down until we figure out... where to go."

She pats her stomach.

"I can wait a while longer to eat. This smell killed my appetite."

[assassino]

Mosey? Ezio nods anyway; he gets it. He will eat canned goods if it comes to it, but he's not particularly enthused at the idea, so he can only hope that there will be better options in the city. If there isn't the canned goods will only stave off the inevitable, so there'll be some need to venture out anyway.

He has very vague memories of the world beyond. Maybe something can be found out there.

"We will need to find candles or something to make a torch, too," he remarks. "The castle does not have enough windows... it will be very dark when night falls."

[secondchances]

"You're right," she mutters, taking his hand so they can at least get out of the awful smelling kitchen. It's not ideal, but things are, so far, better than she thought they might be.

"I'm hoping the dark doesn't draw out anything unpleasant."

[assassino]

He follows her out, fingers laced with hers.

"I'm plenty well armed if it comes to it," he replies. Ideally not, given what Paradisa can churn out, but he isn't expecting much more than some scavenger animals.

[secondchances]

"And, if all else fails, we're both fast enough."

To run the hell away from whatever might try and make a meal out of them.

"You good to head out?"

[assassino]

He nods. He's ready for whatever happens.

"Yes, let's go," he replies, squeezing her hand.

[secondchances]

Hand holding while solving a mystery is a weird sort of throwback, and Steph has to resist the urge to pull her hand away. She's older now. More experienced. Not as boy crazy. It's fine.

"If the ghosts aren't here to serve us, I have a sneaking suspicion the townsfolk won't be around, either."

[assassino]

"I suppose not," Ezio replies. "But they have many, many more buildings to comb through... surely some of them will have something we can use."

[secondchances]

"Things to burn, things to eat..."

She looks to him as they make their way outside.

"What else?"

[assassino]

"Things to cook with, tools to make repairs with, things to keep warm," he replies. "It gets cold here in the winter, doesn't it? And we'll need to grow enough to store food for over the winter."

He knows she's not going to be happy at that prospect, but frankly, neither is he. He doesn't know shit about farming.

[secondchances]

She's not, but she's making an effort to not make this whole situation worse by complaining too much. She's assuming he does, in fact, know some shit about farming.

"I don't think we'll have trouble finding tools and clothes. If the people are gone, there has to be some stuff left behind."

... probably. Otherwise, they're going to have to check the castle rooms one by one, which isn't her favorite idea.

guess who can still spell monteriggioni on first try? this gal.

[assassino]

A perk of being a nobleman is never having to take more than a supervisory role in farming, and he's hardly in Monteriggioni enough to learn much of that, anyway. Fortunately for Ezio, he will one day actually be a farmer, but boy is that a long way off.

"It may be a great task, rummaging through an entire city," he muses. "There could be others here, too, that we haven't seen yet... farming takes a great deal of labour."

winner of the assassin's creed spelling contest 2020

[secondchances]

Steph nods along, listening.

"Right," she agrees. "I guess we'll go to the city and see what the situation is. If it's empty of people, we can check the shops, assuming people didn't get there before us and take the good stuff before... leaving? I don't know. I'm really hoping we get there and it's fine."

It's clear no one's gone from the city to the castle or vice versa in a long time, given the state of the path.

"This is a very romantic first date."