BITS OF HISTORY [QUEST/O]

"Should we wait for more, or should we go?"

The voice was abrupt, plain, and direct. It spoke frankly and without excess baggage. Emotions were baggage. It was offensive to clutter up the air with more emotion than necessary; to press upon others some feeling or mood they did not innately have was to commit an err.

Like staging a NPC to cry. To use a child with big round eyes and quaint features to tickle feelings of remorse or pity or sympathy - something about it bothered her. It reminded her of Artemis, of how Artemis had been so... empathetic towards fake people. It was bothersome that someone of good heart could be fooled into kindness that would never be returned in kind. Or perhaps the bothersome part was the fact those of good heart never needed their kindness returned to begin with.

Eh. It was best not to think about it. It was best to get a move on. She didn't want to fall behind…

Looking at the other player expectantly, Cross tilted her head just the slightest amount and rose her brows. 'Well?' Her expression asked.

Accepting the invitation in one gesture, Cross would pull up her friends list with another. Prompted by his offer her fingertips would hover over an impulsive selection. They were still online, and she didn't think they would be opposed, but...

She had told them next time she would help them, not rope them into helping her again. Not that this was a 'helping her' situation anyway. Eyeballing this 'Diz' she had to admit that quests seemed to reward the collective over the independent. If she could go alone, she would have, but the reliable benefit of working in a team made that an ineffective method. However, with that said, inviting other players to a quest would require that the current party wait for them...

It would be rather presumptuous to make him wait for someone he didn't even know... Wouldn't it?

"Hmm. No. It will be quicker with just us. Wouldn't it?" She answered as she followed behind. Reading up on the cliff notes of the quest, Cross couldn't help but eventually ask, "What do you think the picture inside of the locket is of?"

Avoid me?

She blinked, one part surprised and the other part...

She didn't mean…

Ah. It was neither here nor there. Excuses weren't helpful, or useful, or worthwhile. What mattered was... change, right? And learning. And doing better.

His grinning sought reciprocity and in return she attempted to offer a little warmth of her own. She smiled slightly back, and while it didn't crinkle her eyes or seem terribly natural, it was the effort that mattered, right? He wasn't like Goryo, who she could walk with in content silence, or Artemis, whose awkward way of chatting along didn't bother Cross at all. He was... Diz.

And there was something strangely profane about asking a stranger about a locket that piqued her interest. What sort of person asked something like that? Better yet, what sort of person answered her own inquiry with so much conviction?

Someone like herself would have said the NPC's locket probably contained nothing. It was, after all, an NPC. It didn't have a family or memories... It couldn't. He answered differently and she couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't a reflection of who he was consequently. Maybe in his locket he would have his family. A happy family no doubt, loving and nurturing and kindly. They would have large smiles and plump faces and warm eyes...

Taking a moment to ponder it thoughtfully, she felt guilty when all she came up with was, "But lockets are so small..."

She couldn't say she would stow portraits of her family in a locket, or friends, or that she had something or someone she felt worthy of entering a little medallion about her neck. Those she cared for - those she deemed her friends - she remembered without a locket.

"Maybe…" Maybe she could put her worries and mistakes in a locket. Maybe it could be a metaphorical Pandora's Box where someone stowed all the unhappiness in their heart. And maybe, if that was true, losing a locket really wouldn't be that bad... Maybe.

"Mmm. I don't know." she admitted while realizing that he (likely) would be unhappy if she left the conversation there. "Do you play with your family?"

"Rather…" She began as her voice trailed off.

'So they give you material gifts instead of attention now?' She would have said and she was thankful that she didn't. It was too personal and would come off too... nosy. It implied too much and she was certain his family remained as happy and as pleasant as Zoya had initially imagined. She was just being a wordage pest, someone who took phrases and sentences and comments and picked at them.

It was a bad habit that stemmed from being trilingual. People very rarely were a grammatically correct on conversation as the textbooks made one believe.

Instead of continuing down that rabbit hole, Cross turned over to a new line of thought. "Yes," she admitted with a nod. A pause followed before she remembered that more was better for Diz, "Only someone with a nice family would say what you did, and someone with a nice family would do things with them..." It made sense. Who didn't like nice people, especially if they were ones family, and who didn't do stuff with people they liked? Hell, her family wasn't particularly nice but she still liked them and…

"Oh. Are you able to logout, Diz?" chatting and walking had seemingly put them outside of the town. Finding the creek shouldn't be difficult, but glancing at the time she remembered...

Her brother and niece would be back soon. Or maybe 'back' was the wrong word...

"It's weird that sort of bug is still around at launch… Do you think the beta testers missed it?"

If she looked baffled at his laughing it was only because she was.

Was he laughing at her...? No, it didn't seem to be the case. He was laughing at something else and as much as she would wrack her brain to figure out why, she couldn't. Had she said a word wrong? Had the subject been funny to begin with? No, no... she was very certain neither was the case.

Then, why?

It was a strange instict that bid her not to ask. She didn't know why, but she felt... apphrension in the pit of her belly at the prospect of knowing. It was the sort of uneasiness that always festered when someone stood at a cliff, desperately wanting to see over the edge but still petrified by their own mortality.

Doing what she did for a living, she loved that feeling. It felt... real, tangible, honest, in a world that she had found to be everything but. Besides, she was certain it was nothing. It was just mental. It wasn't like Diz was a digimon or a ghost or something like that. He was a person.

"Why would you say that?" She asked, her eyes coasting over to the creek. While she registered the motion to follow she was hesitant. Instead of trudging into the creek, she bent her knees and crouched on the bank, peering into the water and seeking a 'shiny something' amongst the glint of the shallow-enough water. "And why would the administrators do it on purpose?" She added, glancing up from her dry search to look at him.

She had never thought it could be anything but a glitch... but if it wasn't, then it was done on purpose, and if it was done on purpose...

Well. That just seemed ridiculous. Why would any company remove the logout option? It seemed easier to believe it was a bug, so how did he come up with a different theory?

Cross squinted her eyes.

Did he know something she didn't?

What he said seemed idealistic. A safe haven for interaction... the idea was pretty, but the reality differed for someone who believed that a game was a game. Interaction, safety, camaraderie - the administrators did not feed their families on warm fuzzy feelings. They cared about money, wealth, and profit, and it would always be easier to foster the aforementioned with a self-sustaining population born from a mass of peers. It was a capitalist society that governed the world... even if people had good intentions and good ideals, if they didn't gain benefit from it, then...

"It is very strange that we turn to virtual reality to find those things." She commented idly, referencing what he suggested SAO was meant to be. If the world's populace truly wanted a safe haven, a place to interact without barrier or inhibition, then... wouldn't that society make the world into that reality, instead of using a fake world to conjure it up?

… But a prison...?

Cross had not considered the possibility of the logout function being permanently removed. Surely there was a way to forcefully logout... Right? How pointless.

Almost as pointless as wanting to do something, but not doing that 'something' if one could. How was that possible? Didn't wanting to do something imply that one would do that something, should they be able to?

"Do you like virtual reality more than real life?"

… But he had a good family. Why would he want to stay here?

Pursing her lips Cross eyed what seemed to be a fairly shiny golden object in the depths of the creek. Strangely enough she choose to remain quiet about the potential find.

Her eyes flickered downward, her quiet features shifting into a look of subtle discomfort. Instinctively she thought to apologize. She hadn't meant to be discourteous, and suddenly, abruptly, she felt that she had been exactly that. She hadn't meant to be insensitive...

But apologizing seemed wrong, too.

... Maybe he was lying, anyway. A person couldn't believe everything they were told online. Words ought to be taken with pinches of salt, and little stock ought to be put into other players. Lying was easy. There were very few consequences for lying in a game. The anonymity was a safety net for the truth and for the fabrications people spewed...

But what sort of person would lie about what he suggested? Why would they? Did he expect pity?

... No, it didn't look like he expected pity... Ah, that would make apologizing seem even worse, wouldn't it?

Cross lapsed into thoughtful silence that, much to her chagrin, often was what led others into thinking she was cold, or aloof, or difficult to know. She seemed so disjointed and abrasive when bouts of introspection made her stew and muse.

"How can it not bother you?" she asked at last.

She didn't believe him. After moments of awkward silence, she could not help but declare that... he wasn't being honest. How could he not be bothered by how long he had been asleep? How could he not be bothered about the separation of his mind and body and all those he had been forced to leave behind? How could he say such fond things about family and be so hopeful about what SAO could be... if he did not care, or miss the real world? And if he cared, or missed them and it, then how could he not be bothered? Why on earth was he smiling, anyway?

… Was he just... use to it?

'The first time in a while that I've talked to an actual person...'

'That must be so lonely,' she thought, frowning deeply. She couldn't fathom it. If it was true... then...

How did he enter SAO? Was it an experiment? And if it was, and if they saw results... then... why didn't his family join him here, in SAO, to see him?