rakuen | strange behaviour

Entry tags:

strange behaviour

Characters: Sherlock Holmes and YOU
Format: prose preferred, please ♥
This log is: open!
Location: Out and about on the grounds
Summary: Sherry Holmes counts trees.
Warnings: none at the time of posting

He starts by the main entrance, at the southernmost point of the elongated hexagon that makes up the grounds, and moves clockwise. Every time he sees a tree, he not only notes it down in his pocket notebook but walks up to it and puts his hand against the trunk, as though to confirm it is real.

Last night he slept reasonably well on the roof of White dorm. He knows he can't count on that, but for now he is grateful not to have started back down the inevitable spiral of sleep deprivation and paranoia just yet. He looks serene and well-rested, which only invites the question of what the hell he is doing to all those trees.

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Enki had simply been sitting under a tree at the edge of the small forest, trying to relax. But when the reason for relaxing was missing a vital part of both your relationships and your protections, and they were simply not coming back, this was hard to do.

Especially with a young man slowly working himself in Enki's direction being... curious.

"What. Are you doing?" Enki finally asks after the boy has passed him, opening his eyes to have a better look. While the tone is rather demanding, it's not particuarly rude, somehow more inquisitive.

"Counting trees," he answers, giving the forest a studying look as though trying to decide if it would be worth counting those too.

Apparently not, because he stops.

Okay... Time to tread gently, perhaps.

"And the reason for that? They're trees. There's a lot more behind us, too." Of course, 'treading gently' wasn't one of Enki's more stellar personality traits. As in, it didn't exist at all; unless you were looking for more gentle action, but there had been no obvious reason to use that here, and was, at any rate, seldom dusted off.

Sherlock doesn't seem bothered.

"If I arrive at an accurate number and later find that it has changed, without any trees having been obviously planted or destroyed, I will know that the reality of this place is mutable in certain ways. There could be any number of explanations, of course, but it would be a data point."

... What.

"You could easily miss any tree, and come up with different numbers each time you counted," Enki said with a frown. It's not exactly a rejection of the logic, as it's incredulity about the methods. And how was the he even deciding which trees this close to the forest behind them to count or not? That was just arbitrary.

It's not his place to censor such an action, however; not just because they don't know each other, but who's Enki to deny some action to the guy if it gives his mind some peace?

That doesn't mean he doesn't think it seemed slightly excessive, but that was none of his business.

"That is why I am verifying them." He shrugs. "I trust my own mind; I do not trust the world."

The only way to be certain he'd counted all the trees he wanted to, would be to mark them, which, as far as Enki can see, he hasn't done. Standing up with a grunt, Enki shook his head.

"Your mind can be tricked just as well as the world can shift. They've taken memories, haven't they?" Enki spat, still disbelieveing that they had taken Yokuhi's name. Or the knowledge of who he had chosen as the king. Wouldn't it be enough to simply take his powers, such as they were? He wouldn't, couldn't, fight.

"Yes. I have identified all but one of my missing memories and regained two of them. I've counted thirty-eight trees so far and found ways in which each is memorably distinct from the others."

Wow... Enki stared, catching his lower jaw before it even dropped by long practice (these things were needed to make sure Shōryū didn't 'win' too often).

"That's, uh... Impressive, I suppose." He still couldn't really see what counting the trees would do, though. Briefly, Enki wondered what other memories he was missing, and realized that, while there was a faint breeze, as soon as it stopped or changed direction, he couldn't recall how it felt when playing through his mane.

Wonderful. It still wasn't as (exactly) as big a loss as who the king was, or his nyokai's name.

"I know three they've taken," Enki finally said, eyes narrowed.

"It troubles me that I still have not found the last one," Sherlock admits. "It suggests that the loss is so comprehensive that no related subject can remind me of what isn't there."

Utena's not doing much of anything, just wandering in a semi-purposeful way, taking in the space. The architecture's certainly familiar.

A guy noting down and touching the trees. Certainly her last school had weirder things in it. But she does feel compelled to ask.

Bookbinder held over her shoulder, she cocks her head at the stranger.

"Excuse me, what are you doing?" It's not said in an accusatory way, but genuinely curious.

Sherlock answers, without a hint of embarrassment,

"Counting all the trees in the compound that do not belong to the forest. I could count the forest as well, I suppose, but it would take longer and the result would be less accurate."

The. Forest.

The forest is a secret. It rises suddenly from the hidden parts of the academy. The forest is where princes ride on white horses. The forest is where the elevator is. The arena. The forest is a drop of cold water on my right index finger and huge gates sliding open, clacking, driven by some invisible mechanism.

Utena's momentarily gotten a far away look, the kind you see in returning soldiers. It only lasts a second though.

"Oh? Are you a landscaper? Or an architect?"

Not too insightful of a questionner, she is.

"No."

He lets that stand for about half a second, then adds, "I am trying to determine if this place obeys the laws of reality as I understand them."

"Oh." She thinks about the elevator and the arena and especially that magical hanging castle. She doesn't know anything about architecture but has a feeling things like that aren't usually done.

"I have a feeling it doesn't."

"I have a similar feeling," Sherlock admits. "You're new here, are you not? Be glad of it. Everyone I have spoken to who was already here had a vivid nightmare the morning of your arrival concerning the lot of us slaughtering one another."

"Yeah, the last place I was at was like this too. Oh." She puts a hand to her mouth. "That's awful. It sounds like someone did that on purpose." The Fallen Prince had never done such a thing, save for what he'd done to the Computerlike Man. But she was very sure such a thing was in the power of such a being.

"It does. The questions of why and how are not presently answerable, but I believe the administration of this place was the cause. One way or another."

"So are you after the truth?" A leading question. If Sherlock were more of a manipulative person, it'd have been easy to lead her around with an enthusiastic, and completely bullshitted affirmative.

"Always," he says, with perfect sincerity.

He seems genuine! Let's trust him!

"I'm Utena." She says, holding out her hand. "If it helps, the last academy I went to was very similar. Maybe that can give you clues?"

"I am Sherlock, and we'll have to forgo the handshake, because you are a Player and I am someone else's Weapon." He inclines his head. "A pleasure to meet you, nonetheless."

Reid was leaning on a birch, reading the Exaclan handbook. It was obvious that was what he was doing, because he was running his finger down the page incredibly rapidly, turning the page, and continuing. He clearly just got started, and it wouldn't take long for him to finish. He had a notebook with him too, but it sat neglected in the grass. He needed a whiteboard. But until the classrooms were no longer in use for the day, he would have to make do.

He took no notice of Sherlock, and probably wouldn't until he came very close.

When Sherlock catches sight of Reid, he stops in his tracks. Fascinating.

Still, that's a tree he is leaning against, and it needs to be counted the same as any of them. Sherlock steps up beside him and examines the pattern of the bark, looking for something he can use to distinguish this particular birch from the rest.

Reid glances up briefly to the young man, then back to his book. "Am I in your way?" he asked, stepping aside. When he moved, there was a place where the tree was still healing from having lost a branch somewhere around where his head had been. The wood swelled around the broken stump, though it would be several years before it completely covered it.

"Only slightly."

He studies the missing branch for a few seconds and then opens his notebook and records the existence of tree number thirty-one. "Thank you," he adds as he closes it again.

"Cataloging the trees?" he asked curiously. He didn't close the book, but he did have his focus drawn from it successfully.

"Yes. Thirty-one of them, so far. And you? Memorizing the rulebook?"

"Yes, though it's not like I have a choice in the matter," he said. "I have an eidetic memory.

"I'm Dr. Spencer Reid," he said simply. Since he didn't have his credentials, he would leave out the FBI part for now.

"Of course you do. It is the likeliest explanation for why you read faster than I do."

He smiles.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Dr. Reid. I am Sherlock Holmes."

The look on Reid's face was clearly one of recognition, but he didn't say anything. "The pleasure's mine, I"m sure," was the most he'd give away. He seemed a bit young. Maybe he was just playing a prank.

"What is your goal with the trees, if you don't mind my asking?" he asked, curiously.

"Oh, I am trying to establish a baseline so that I have a chance of catching any surreptitious changes to the physical reality of this place later on. Trees are easy to count and relatively immutable; they seemed the place to start."

It's a pity that the only evidence he sees on Dr. Reid leads to trivial conclusions. He has an urge to demonstrate his deductive faculties just now.

Reid nodded, and became a bit more animated. "That makes sense. If the holographic projections are as realistic as they claim, then it would be very easy to change anything. Have you been mapping them as well? Any possible patterns in movement, size, or shape could signal something to us." What an interesting problem he's discovered.

"Only on the most rudimentary level, I'm afraid. I would be glad of your assistance if the project interests you."

"Maps are a hobby of mine. I could absolutely create one. I'm sure there's a campus map in here..." he flipped to one of the first pages of the manual, and there it was. It was rather broad, but it gave him a good jumping-off point. He needed to make it bigger, though. "Yes, here we are. I can start with this."

Sherlock smiles.

"Excellent. Thank you very much."

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strange behaviour

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Hi there 8D

hellooooo 8D

Re: hellooooo 8D

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