The First Step [Amelie & Rinji]

The Scolomon nodded happily at Amelie's affirmations, completely unaware of what she'd been dreaming about earlier. He'd hoped she'd slept well at least, which seemed to be the case. She hadn't stirred very much while she was hugging him, so she must've been comfortable at least. Although he wasn't sure he made a very good pillow.

Nonetheless, the two had hopped off the train and continued out through the station platform towards their new destination.

Walking alongside Amelie like this... made Rinji wonder if all Digimon partners felt this way? The feeling of having someone to want to protect and keep safe, and the sense of resolve and confidence that came with that feeling. In that moment, he understood. Understood why Digimon that partnered up with humans were so sure of themselves, through thick and thin. They weren't doing it for themselves - they were doing it for their partner.

A question from Amelie broke him out of his self-musings. "Oh, uh," he paused, thinking of the right way to phrase it. "It doesn't really hurt unless I stretch it too hard," he explained. The wound had mostly coagulated by now, forming into a gummed up scab. The make-shift bandage was now tinged with a small patch of dried up, oxidised blood. "I think I should be good within a few days."

Good enough to travel with Amelie. It'd have to be. He smiled at her reassuringly in return, followed by a concerned expression. "And how's your arm?" He'd almost forgotten - hopefully it wasn't paining her. The thought of it bothering her left an icky feeling of guilt within him.

Rinji followed his human counterpart into the office building, gawking at the large selection of printed papers and leaflets, yet not thinking twice about the huge size of the entrance. Instead, the endless rows of maps and informational leaflets was entrancing him. 

Amy seemed as lost as he was. "Hmm..." He pondered the selection and sidled up to the map-related shelving. Maps of the Digital World, maps of Terminus City, even maps of the Human World? It was all quite overwhelming.

"This one maybe?" Rinji grabbed a thick, folded booklet from the shelf with two of his appendages, and held it in front of his face, squinting at the text. That confirmed it: a complete map of the Digital World's known continents and areas. That'd been lucky.

He looked back at Amy, confirming she was still there, then unfolded it to check the contents. Then kept unfolding it, and unfolded it some more, and oh Lord Yggdrasil this was a big map. "Uhm... uh..." He panicked, trying to un-unfold the map. Was it this crease that went there? Oh no, this was embarrassing.

"W-well, Amy, I think we found our map," he commented, still puzzled over how the whole thing was supposed to fold back into a square. Right now, it was laid out onto the floor in front of him in a paper-y disaster. "Um... how do I fold it back again?" He questioned himself, trying to remember how it'd initially gone together. No luck, as he'd have it; he was stumped.

Hearing that Amelie's arm wasn't bothering her gave him a small sense of relief. Still, maybe they should buy some medical supplies later? They could definitely use them. He'd have to remember that for later; it was as important as food and water, after all. Especially if Amy wanted to replace his bandages, he didn't want to use up her entire supply.

"Th-thanks." Rinji stuttered, embarrassed by his fumbling attempts to refold the map. Amelie was definitely far more dexterous than he was. Of course, she had hands. Nonetheless, he did what he could to help refold the map with her assistance. This fold here, that fold there...

"There we go!" He sang, admiring their combined handiwork of refolding the map. With two of them, it hadn't been so hard. "We do make a pretty good team, don't we?" It wouldn't surprise him if any onlooking digimon assumed they were partners of some sort. It wasn't like there were obvious tell-tale signs that Amelie was a spirit user.

Food sounded good. "Yep," he agreed, happy with Amelie's proposals. "We'll have to see what they have." To carry the food, maybe they should focus on something light and non-perishable? He stopped to think, then continued. "I'll need to buy a bag so I can carry stuff too." Letting Amy do all the heavy work wasn't something he was about to let happen. Besides, he was stronger than he looked; carrying food and water would be no problem.

Good thing the maps were a free service, Rinji noted. Not having to wait in line to pay for them made their little stocking-up chore far quicker. The trip to the marketplace didn't take long either. A bit of crowd-weaving and they both found themselves in the bright and colourful vendors markets. This place always felt more friendly and natural than the rest of the city.

The only thing in specific that he needed was a bag. "A travelling bag's all I need," he voiced. "They have tents here too." Gearing up would be just as important as stocking food; sleeping out in the open or in the dark wouldn't be much fun. 

Right now, they seemed to be in the food-related section, and it made him wonder about exactly what they should buy. "I suppose we should just buy what we like?" Realising he had no idea what Amelie preferred, food-wise, maybe it'd be best to let her choose?

Then, he had an idea. "I know, if we buy staples like rice and meat, I can carry it easy on my back! When it's healed up a bit more, that is," he added, remembering his injury. "Do you want to buy the food? I'm not really fussy." It would free him up to go and buy the other things they needed.

"Then I can go get us a tent too, and the other stuff we need," he continued. Then he nodded to Amy, hoping his explanation had sufficed, and set off as quickly as he could to find the related stalls. If he was quick, then he wouldn't be leaving her waiting as long.

Shortly after, he found a market store selling bags of all shapes and sizes. One bag in particular was quite long, and what Rinji considered a perfect fit. "E-excuse me," he announced himself to the Kotemon manning the stall. "Please can I have that bag?"

The Kotemon nodded, picking the bag up from its hanger, and handed it to Rinji. The Scolomon quickly paid for the bag, donned it onto his back, taking care not to dislodge the bandages underneath and continued on his speedy buying spree. Several minutes later, and he was carrying all sorts of random gear; flashlights, cooking pots and pans, fire-starting kits, sleeping bags and the like.

He wondered what Amelie was doing by now. Had she finished buying all the food they needed? Maybe she bought some other things too? Then he remembered something he'd almost forgotten.

"Medicine!" Possibly the most important thing! He hastily approached the herb stall that had coincidentally been right near the start of the market where he'd left Amelie. For a few hundred bits, he bought some healing herbs and pouched them into the carrying bag. It was starting to weigh on his wound, but he pressed on.

Now, he had everything he needed, but where had Amelie gone? He wandered the stalls, occasionally gawking at the strange foods on offer, and wondered if perhaps he'd strayed too far away in his excitement to get ready.

Oh well, maybe he'd find her in a minute, whatever she was doing. The market-place was, well, a big place! Either way, they'd bump into each other again for sure.

The insect digimon wandered the market some more before eventually returning to the place he'd earlier agreed to meet Amelie at. Maybe now she'd be waiting for him?

He came to a stop just outside the original entrance to the market and just by happenstance, looked up to see the orange tint of the sky. Now, he didn't have a watch or clock on him, but it was obviously getting quite late by now. Even the light breeze that'd earlier been pleasant was starting to feel a little chilly.

Rinji shivered a little. Amelie still wasn't here by the looks of things.

Then, like magic, he saw her round a corner and approach him. There she was!

"My shopping spree? Oh, right." The Scolomon rubbed the back of his head with a forearm, smiling awkwardly at Amy. He had bought a lot of stuff, hadn't he? "I think I bought everything we needed." Amy had plenty of food on her as well, it seemed.

A place to stay the night sounded good. He was about to comment on Amy's suggestion of food - when her stomach answered for the both of them. Rinji couldn't help but laugh a little at the whole situation.

"It's okay," he assured her after seeing her face turn a slightly lighter shade of himself. "I guess that just means we need to eat first. I haven't had anything since we were on the Trailmon," he concluded, remembering the digibite snacks he'd nibbled on half-way through the trip. It'd been the only thing keeping him going all day.

With that, his stomach grumbled too. Surprise etched itself on his face, then he laughed it off again. Maybe in front of someone else, he'd be more embarrassed. But with Amelie? He couldn't help but feel more relaxed than usual - which was strange, considering all that'd happened earlier.

The evening was too pleasant to let that ruin his day, however. "Looks like that makes the both of us," he said, commenting on his own tummy rumble.

"Should we head for the tourist district? I saw earlier it had inns and restaurants." Having fumbled with trying to refold the map for so long earlier, he couldn't help but take note of all the places in the city it had depicted. Each section of the city had appeared to be divided into districts, all dedicated to their own purpose. It was an efficient design he'd never known about until today, despite being more of a resident of this world than Amy.

Presumably, if Amelie agreed, the both of them would leave the market and begin their journey through the streets of Terminus towards their next destination. Hopefully they'd make it before nightfall, although Rinji wouldn't mind seeing what Terminus looked like at night. 

Having heard Amelie accept his proposal, Rinji followed along beside her. As they walked together, a question from Amelie prompted the Scolomon to break his attention away from a particularly large building he'd been staring at.

"Where could we travel first?" Rinji repeated after Amelie, ensuring he'd heard her properly. Doubly so, it'd been a rhetorical question aimed towards himself. There were a lot of places the two could visit. Dangerous places, wild places, but where to begin?

"How about..." He hesitated, still stalling for an an idea. Somewhere close to Terminus City, perhaps? Reminded by the chill in the evening air, he shivered and finally finished his answer, idea in mind: "the Tropics?" Warm and wet they were, so he'd been told.

"There were loads of rumours about the jungle and the weird digimon that lived there," he added, remembering the stories that the forest digimon used to tell each other every winter during the Deepwinter Sharing. Spent under the largest pine tree on the coldest day of the year, it'd become tradition for all the forest's residents to tell tales of their adventures.

And a tale of a warmer, wilder place than the Eastern Forest? It was more than enough to get everyone talking about it. What strange secrets could somewhere so uncharted hold?

"Maybe we'll find out what kind of digimon your spirits are?" Rinji said, continuing his line of reasoning. "I mean... I've never seen anything like them before." He wasn't the most well-travelled of digimon, but he was sure that if Amelie were to suddenly spirit evolve in the middle of the street, it'd be more than enough to turn a few heads. Digimon like that... just weren't normal.

Thinking about the oddities of Amelie's spirits had to come later, though. For now, the spirit user had pointed out a rather large tavern. "That place looks all right," he commented, a little unsure over the grandiose size of the place, but happy to go there nonetheless.

Once he followed Amelie inside, he followed her to a table. "Uh, just a minute." Seeing the problem that presented itself, the centipede-mon quickly half-ran, half-walked to another part of the restaurant. Thankfully, he wasn't told off for running (although, it was rather hard to tell when a centipede's run was just a sped up version of its walk), and came back dragging a large, lengthy, cushioned stool.

"There we go," he said happily as he sat down on top of it, tucking his bright yellow legs beneath him. Far more comfortable than trying to squeeze into a chair designed for humanoids and smaller digimon.

"Sorry about that, I had the same thing happen to me another time," Rinji explained, realising Amelie might've been a little out of the loop.

There again, Amelie still seemed confused? Then he realised - their table had no menu! Turning around to find an empty table, he reached out and snatched a couple menus from it. "Well, here are the menus," he stated, handing her one of them.

Laying out his own menu, he surveyed the selection. The prices weren't too bad; he could definitely pay for this. He looked up from his menu towards Amelie. "Hey, when you're finished deciding what you want, I can go order for us?"

Rinji nodded towards Amelie. A surprise stew? What sort of ingredients did something like that have? With confusion still written on his face, he dismissed the notion and looked back down towards the menu. No point in keeping Amelie waiting - they needed to eat, and soon!

The Scolomon squinted at the descriptions beneath each meal. "I think I'll go for the Seared Steak," he said with a slight tinge of tentativeness. It was splurging a little, but he couldn't help but think about how hungry he was. It wasn't like he didn't have enough bits to afford it either, right?

"Okay, guess I'll go order now." Rinji excused himself from the table and scuttled up towards the tavern counter. A couple of black and white dinosaur digimon queued up in front of him as they ordered something, and he took the moment to drift away into thought.

A multitude of questions, doubts and ideas were floating in his mind. Was it really a good idea to visit the Southern Tropics first, or had he just been tempted by the idea of a warm climate? Would the trip be uneventful or fraught with danger? What if they...

"And what would you like to order?" A voice broke him from his little day-dream, dragging him back into reality. A Meicoomon with bright green eyes was staring at him, almost passionately.

Was he always this distracted?

"Oh, uh..." He hesitated, still a bit muddled. "One Surprise Stew, and a Seared Steak."

"Quite simple," the Meicoomon commented, writing down the order onto a notepad. "Would you like any drinks with that?" She asked plainly, staring up at him passionately again from behind the bar, presumably from on top of a stool.

Rinji found himself stumped, remembering that Amelie hadn't mentioned anything about drinks. "How much for two glasses of chilled water?" Assuming they served it, of course. Personally, it was what he would've ordered anyway, but Amelie could always order something more interesting if she wanted to, right?

"Oh, those are on the house," Meicoomon replied, finishing up the order. She stared past Rinji, back towards the two dinosaur digimon that'd already ordered, paused for a second, and said, "I'll take these orders to the chef now, your food should be ready soon~"

"Thank you," Rinji thanked her and scurried off back to sit with Amelie as soon as he could.

Sighing as he sat back down across from Amelie, he realised that he should probably tell her about the drinks. "Uh, Amy, I ordered both of us water, if that's okay?" 

"'Cause... actually, what kind of drinks do they serve?" He asked her, curious - he hadn't checked the other side of the menu. Flipping it with a claw, he skimmed over the contents, squinting as he read.

"Oh, they have alcohol here," he mentioned, a little surprised. Alcohol was a rare sight in the rural regions of the Digital World, so it was just strange to suddenly see it.  Shrugging, the centipede digimon relaxed back into the cushions of his seat, glad to be resting after such a long day.

"So..." He started, "are we going to leave for the Tropics tomorrow?" Might as well get their plans out of the way while they had a moment between them. Better now than while they were eating.

Hearing Amelie happily accept his second-guessed order, the centipede sighed in silent relief. Unless Amelie was a particularly argute observer, it was likely she wouldn't notice his hidden tension. Still, it seemed tonight would go smoothly with no muck-ups to ruin what Rinji considered a pretty good day, despite the distant stinging that haunted the injury on his back. Perhaps he shouldn't have strained it so much, so soon.

Without being given adequate time to delve into the troubling thoughts over the injury, the digimon nodded towards Amelie affirmatively. Starting their anticipated pilgrimage with a hangover... Rinji let out a light laugh at the thought.

"I don't think I'd want to drink that much," he replied airily, still amused over the subsequent imagery it drew to his mind. Although the idea made him pause for a moment; hadn't he drank alcohol before? Surely, he must've done, yet there again couldn't quite grasp a memory of when or where.

Was it just a strange sense of deja vu? Inwardly dismissing the misplaced idea, he moved onto something he certainly did remember. "Well... if you think about how this all started, one of us kind of did start with a hangover..." He gently teased, thinking back to fonder times. Amelie was no stranger to drinking, that much he knew.

Then again, it begged the question of what exactly she'd been doing before they'd met. To Rinji, she didn't seem like the party-all-night type, yet he could think of one hundred exceptions to get drunk. A party or celebration, a party-loving friend, a rough night...

"Pretty sure I don't have anything that really needs doing," Rinji said to Amelie over the questions looming above their schedule. Was she implying that they could stay in Terminus for longer?

"Terminus isn't all that bad of a city, but I'd rather not... hang around for too long." Only the slightest tinge of discomfort made itself known in his voice. Once you've seen it all, there's not much reason to want to stick about, he reasoned.

"I mean, I've already seen most of it in my own time, unless I missed something." Maybe there had been more to see, but really, what else could there be?

The journey they'd both be undertaking would be more than enough adventure, anyhow. And honestly, Rinji was hoping that maybe he'd learn something new for himself. Even if it were something as simple as satisfying the curiosity of what he'd digivolve into.

Without further ado, a Meicoomon holding two plates and full glasses of iced water came over, skilfully balanced on her paws. "One surprise stew and one seared steak!" She confirmed, setting them onto the table. Respectfully, she managed to guess correctly who had what. "Enjoy your meal! If you have any requests, I'll be back by the counter," she chimed, before bounding away again, free of the heavy plates.