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Echo stumbled over herself a bit and laughed a bit awkwardly.
"Gravity is weird," Echo said, somewhat randomly. "What do you think about gravity?"
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"Gravity? For sure it's an interesting force. I say I'm glad of its existence, as it keeps forces balanced both here and outside."
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"Yea, like planets and stuff!" Echo nodded.
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"That's what I was thinking about," Germaine confirmed. "Gravity is a force of order after all. Imagine what our world would be like without it." She made a light circular movement with her hand, gesturing around.
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"Whoa..." Echo looked to go into thought. "I never really thought about it that way!"
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She smiled. "Well, then that's a new perspective for you to consider."
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Echo nodded.
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Germaine fell silent again and focused on the path again. They were both leaving the very large forest by now, judging by the trees becoming sparser.
Germaine's hair was soaking wet.
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Echo looked up at the sky, wondering when the rain would let up. It looked like it would be a while. Hmm.
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"Is the covering keeping you dry?" Germaine asked. She meant the shawl.
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"Yea... thank you for letting me use it... but are you sure you don't need it more? I mean, like, uhm, well, uh-"
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"Oh, no problem at all! Now that I'm all drenched, you might as well keep it." She laughed for a second. 'No use to protect myself from rain at this point."
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Echo looked very worried now.
"M-maybe you should use it to dry off," Echo said. "Aren't you cold? Oh gods, uhm-"
She started to take the shawl off, a clear look of sudden anxiety showing on her face.
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"It wouldn't make sense to dry myself if I'm going to get wet again. Keep it," she insisted.
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It was easy to tell that Echo's uneasiness wouldn't go away, but she paused from taking the shawl off. There was some kind of apprehension visble in her expression, and the way she nervously tugged at her thumbs and fingers was somewhat unhappily and nervous.
She didn't say anything and looked at the ground, trying to figure out what to say. Instead of some explanation, an apology fumbled out.
"Sorry."
Echo wasn't sure if she was doing something wrong, and she couldn't remember anything about Germaine, so her mind was making assumptions based off of any and every emotion that hit first. Maybe her memories were gone but certain words seemed to trigger emotions and materialized thoughts, and even if Echo couldn't figure out how they were linked, it was the only thing she could trust to listen to at the moment. Her gut felt uneasy, like maybe she had messed up. She had misheard one of Germain's sentences as sarcasm, and so Echo was panicking to do something right.
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((dear gosh,,, NO))
Germaine sensed Echo's unease, though she couldn't pinpoint the cause. That wasn't something she liked. It felt rather strange, to be the one indirectly causing discomfort to another person. Even if not intentional... Germaine didn't like it, and much less in a situation like that one...
"Oh, it's fine, it's fine," she replied in the end, pretty much repeating her point from earlier.
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Echo nervously looked back up.
"Are... uhm, are you sure?"
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She nodded with the most sincere smile she could show. Perhaps her actions could convey her intentions better than words.
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"Oh...okay."
A bit of the nervousness left from her expression.
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That's it, the end of the forest is right up ahead. Beautiful timing there.
Germaine noticed the slight change in scenery and continued smiling.
Is it still raining? Maybe even raining more?
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The rain is starting to slow a bit, but not by much. It might go on for a long while.
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((I'm having trouble roleplaying Germaine lol please forgive a brief hiatus on the thread :'>))
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(It's okay lol, don't stress about it! ^v^)
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Germaine brushed away the wet bangs that were sticking to her forehead.
"And... have you seen Irina and Polina recently?"
Germaine knew that a lot had happened lately, but she also felt she needed to make sure the felines were safe. They couldn't be left wandering around by themselves.
Besides, Echo had taken a liking to them. She'd probably enjoy that topic of conversation even if brief.
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Echo's eyes lit up, very clear excitement for (what the Narrator remembers) the first time during this interaction.
"Y-yea! They live with me and Pa- Alma!" Echo tripped over her words in a childish, excited rush as she tried to get her sentence out.
"Polina is getting bigger, still a baby though! They both get along really well with Alma's puppies! We took them to the vet the other day! I don't think the vet is very used to those kind of cats though. He said they were healthy! Which is really good! They like to follow me a lot, but today Francis is taking care of them because he wanted to do a painting of them. Have you met Francis? He's nice! Anyway, cats!"
She didn't seem to take any breath while saying all of that but instead had rambled it all out in pure excitement to be talking about the lavender felines.
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A smile appeared on Germaine's face as she imagined a vet's reaction to seeing six-legged cats for the first time.
"No, I don't think I've met Francis," she commented quickly before continuing, "and yes, cats are very cute. I'm glad to know that Polina is growing. Good to know your pets are healthy."
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Echo nodded then excitedly asked, "Do you have any pets?"
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"I'd say more like companions, but yes, I do," she replied. "I'm not sure of how many."
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Echo was starry-eyed.
"So cool! That's a lot of animals, right?! Do they all have names?"
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"Well, no, but I did name some of them."