"-ERIDAN!" Feferi catches you off-guard with her grumpy demeanor. You try briefly to figure out just what exactly you did to piss her off even the slightest bit, but you can't help but abandon that train of thought as you take note of the cute way she purses her lips ever-so-slightly when she scowls at you, which leads your thinkpan like a lost puppy to a place better left alone. Her voice stops your pitiful thought sequence before it can trench too deep into painful territory. "JUST W)(AT DO YOU T)(INK YOU'R-E W-EARING?! IT'S )(OT -ENOUG)( OUTSID-E TO FRY YOU UP RIG)(T ON T)(-E SPOT! AND YOU'R-E W-EARING YOUR STUPID GLUBBING CAP-E AND SCARF?!"
"An since wwhen is my wwardrobe any a your concern?"
"IT'S MY CONC-ERN W)(EN YOUR D-EAT)( IS ON MY )(ANDS!" She jabs at your chest with mild force with her forefinger as she crinkles her cartilaginous nub and leans in just a little closer. But her expression isn't really angry; just that kinda fake angry that you pull on the friends your comfortable with, and that in itself is really pretty heartwarming to you. The afterlife may be filled with countless mentally-paralyzing existental flaws that could break the soundest of men at his core if it were given too much cognitive thought, but you guess it's not really that bad if it means you get a chance to make amends with Fef. Everything that happened in the game seems like an entire life-time ago. In fact, it may very well have been. Time wasn't really ever your thing. Then again, neither was hope, apparently.
Feferi's expression gradually changes from grumpy to -EXCIT-ED within a time-span of perhaps maybe 2 seconds before she's speaking again, but this time with a grin plastered on her face, which is still cute enough to make you melt. You'd think that after all this time, you'd be over her by now. And of course you've tried to tell yourself you are, but that always worked about as well as anything else that involves being in complete utter fuckin denial. "T)(-E CAP-E AND SCARF STAY RIG)(T H-ER-E!" she states quite matter-a-factly as she swiftly snatches your cape from around your neck with far too much ease and swirls it at arm's-length before letting go for it to fall freely to the floor behind her.
You do your best to bite your tongue and ignore the fact that your fine vestments are laying in a crumpled heap in the middle of the living room floor. You don't look at Fef but at your poor mistreated cape when you reply dazedly, "So wwe're comin back here afterwwards then?" You sure as hell will not leave them behind if it means you won't be getting them back any later than that same day. Under normal circumstances you would refuse without even giving it a single thought. But if you leave them here then you HAVE to come back to Fef's hive afterwards to pick them back up at least, and it's an excuse to spend more time with Fef. So you wait for her reply, which is an affirmative, before you remove the scarf from your person.
Of course, you can't let her feel like she won so easily. She might get too used to thinking you can be bossed around. So you at least make sure that when you fold your scarf and hang it neatly over the stairs' railing that you huff a little, point your cartilaginous nub to the air, and look down at her as you make a face somewhat resembling a wriggler whose lusus wouldn't let him have grubpops for dinner.
Feferi leaves you to your own devices, which would include standing around (not even taking a seat) in her recreational block getting lost in thought, as she takes somewhere between 5 minutes and 5 whole perigees to finish getting ready. Once she's ready you two take your leave, heading down a path that slowly transitions from Fef's under-water lawnring to a human carnival. Of course there were things like circuses and carnivals and festivals on Alternia, but it wasn't really the same. Well, basically just because and Alternia and Earth weren't really the same. On Alternia, while you functioned as an actual society versus savage beasts, it was still a violent only-the-strong-survive society, and you always had to watch your back and make sure you weren't the next main course for anyone's lusus. While you were among the highest on the hemospectrum and made sure everyone knew it at first glance and you didn't have to worry too much about being the first target in a public gathering, it still kinda affected the whole feel of the environment.
You had never really given all the violence that much thought back on Alternia because that was just the way your society had shaped you, and you truly believed you were better than everyone else because that's what you had always been told. But after society came to a sudden halt due to a few measly meteors, your outlook on everything started to change a little. Sometimes you think it's because you didn't have to deal with societal brainwash anymore, but other times you like to think maybe you just started to grow up. Although you wish you had done more of your growing up while you were actually alive. Maybe then things woulda turned out a little differently.
