Apprehension pt. 1
"Sure," you agree carefully.

"A-ah. You're sure you're OK with it? I mean, if you'd rather sleep in your own room..." Mami asks anxiously.

"No, it's fine," you smile at her.

"Thank you, Sabrina." She returns the smile tentatively. "Umm... I need my hairbrush."

You shake your head. "Go ahead! I'll be right here," you say.

Mami pushes off the couch and moves to her bedroom. You can hear her yanking the drawer open, before she darts back out into the living room with her hairbrush in hand, eyes fretfully hunting for you again. You smile at her from the sofa, and she hurries over to sit beside you again.

You pat her on the shoulder as she shuffles forward a little bit on the sofa seat and begins brushing her hair, leaning forward to avoid the sofa back. Her eyes slide closed, and she hums a little in contentment over the familiar task.

Eventually, her hair is brushed to her satisfaction, and she looks at you.

"Time to sleep?" you ask.

"OK," Mami says.

The two of you move to her bedroom, and you find the mattress leaning against a wall. "I'll take the mattress, OK?" you say, before Mami can offer.

"No, you can take the bed," the blonde disagrees.

You hold up a hand. "Mami, it's your bed, and the mattress is perfectly comfortable," you say.

"O-oh," Mami says, looking like a kicked puppy. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure," you smile at Mami as you drag the mattress over beside the bed while Mami helps you bring over the pillow and blankets.

"Ah... well," Mami perches on the edge of her bed, watching you settle down for the night. "Good night, Sabrina."

"Good night, Mami," you say, burrowing under the blankets as she turns out the lights.

=====​

When you wake up -late, since it's a weekend and you didn't set an alarm clock-, there's a warm presence burrowed into your side.

Well.

Can't say you didn't expect that.

You look down at Mami's peacefully sleeping face, pressed against your shoulder.

"Mami," you say, gently shaking her. "Time to wake up."

"Mrh," the blonde mumbles, cuddling closer to you.

... can't say you didn't expect that, either.

"Mami!" you say a little louder, and shaking her a little more firmly.

"Mrrrm..." Golden eyes crack open, peering lazily at you, before they fly fully open in alarm. "Sabrina?" The blonde flinches back from you and pulls herself into a sitting position, cringing like she's touched a hot stove. "Ah! I'm sorry!"

You shake your head, likewise sitting up. "It's fine, Mami. Just... it's past eight now," you say, tilting your head at the clock.

"Oh," Mami says. "I'm sorr-"

"Don't," you say, but soften the rebuke with a smile. "You have nothing to apologize for, OK? And we're both awake now, so... breakfast?"

"I... yes, that would be nice," Mami says.

"Alright, then." You rise to your feet, yawning hugely and stretching. The sun streaming in through the window is a stark contrast from yesterday's enormous storm, and a glance at the twisted, tangled mess of bedsheets on Mami's bed - it's easy enough to guess at what happened last night, you think. Nightmares and then some.

You wash yourself up, going through the familiar routines of your morning ablutions, with rather more haste than usual - you suspect Mami is giving the door that lost puppy look again.

And indeed, she is, to which you can only respond with what you hope is a reassuring smile. Or...

An idea strikes you, and you direct a handful of Grief marbles to waft out of your bag, moulding themselves into your musical instruments. "Hey, Mami," you smile at her as you meander over to the sofa. "Do you have any requests?"

"Ah... maybe that tune again?" Mami asks, smiling tentatively. "If that's OK?"

"Sure," you agree, and begin playing. "I'll be in the kitchen, OK?"

Mami nods timidly as she walks into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

You leave the instruments playing in the living room as you move to the kitchen to begin preparing some simple breakfast. Hopefully the music should reassure her... though you're not entirely sold on it.

Mami hurries into the kitchen as you set the kettle to boil and turn to stare contemplatively at what you have left, which is not much. "... cereal?" you ask. "We could make pancakes, too, but we had that this week... And it's not like we need to prepare rice for lunch today."

"How about porridge?" Mami suggests.

You shrug. "Sure."

Breakfast, in the end, is a particularly thick porridge, with some pickled vegetables and the very last of the salmon left in the freezer. "Groceries the very first thing today, I guess?" you say as you spoon up some porridge, listening with half an ear to the weather program playing on television.

Mami nods, delicately grabbing some of the pickled vegetables.

"... Hyundai set to reveal their latest offering early next week..."

"Hm... do you think Madoka, Sayaka, and Homura will be awake yet?" you ask thoughtfully.

"... sunny today over Mitakihara City, with a possibility of light showers in Kasamino..."

Mami nods. "I guess so?"

"Well, let's try it," you say, and reach out, including Mami in the telepathic call. "Hello?"

Homura's the first the respond, with a simple. "Good morning."

"Ah! Sabrina, Homura?" Madoka responds. "Good morning!"

"Mnnnnugh," is Sayaka's only response.

"Sayaka!" Madoka says. "How are you?"

"Madoka?" Even Sayaka's mental voice is slurred from sleep.

"Oh, are you sleeping?" the pinkette asks. You glance across the table at Mami and roll your eyes with a grin, to which she responds with a smothered giggle.

"I was," Sayaka complains muzzily.

"Ahem." You inject yourself back into the conversation. "Good morning, everyone."

"This is the second time you woke me up too early," Sayaka grumbles at you.

"Sayaka!" Madoka scolds. "Good morning, Sabrina! Is Mami there?"

"Yes, I am. Good morning!" Mami says.

"Good morning," Homura repeats patiently.

"Oh, you're here too," Sayaka responds. "Yeah, 'morning, I guess. 's not a good one. Too early."

"Anyway!" you say. "Mami and I are going shopping later today at the big shopping center , maybe after lunch. Would you like to come along?"

"Mrrrrrm. Sure. Mum and dad don't need me around today," Sayaka says.

"Ah... I can go!" Madoka replies.

"I'll be there," Homura responds immediately after the pinkette. If you were the suspicious sort, you'd guess that she had been waiting to see whether Madoka was going before she made her own decision...

"Great! See you all later, then?" you say.

"Later," Sayaka replies. "I'm going back to sleep now."

"See you later!" Mami says brightly.

"See you!" Madoka says.

And finally... "Bye," from Homura.

You smile at Mami as the call ends. "Well, that's that, then!"

Mami smiles at you across the table. "I'm still amazed that you managed to... ah... make Homura human."

"Oh come on, she's not that bad," you tell her.

"I know that now," Mami says. "But I would never have seen it myself..."

"Ah, well," you say meaninglessly. "Groceries time?"

"Sure," Mami nods, pushing back the chair and picking up her dishes for washing.

=====​

Homura's telepathic voice intrudes on you as you contemplate some tomatoes. "Sabrina?"

"Yes, Homura?" you respond absently, selecting a tomato and checking its skin for flaws.

"You told Mami about the nature of Soul Gems."

"I did," you confirm, hefting the tomato in your hand before dropping it into a plastic bag to join another three of its companions.

"And we're going shopping later?" Homura continues.

"Yes?"

"... OK." Homura says.

"Is it that hard to believe?" you ask, a trace of annoyance leaking in to your mental voice.

"... yes," Homura admits.

"Well, it happened," you tell her, looking around for Mami. She's in the next row over, and you catch her peeking at you instead of choosing some vegetables as she's supposed to. You smile at her, and walk over to join her.

=====​

Laden with plastic bags full of groceries, you and Mami walk back home, and unload all the groceries. It's still early, though, about ten thirty.

[] Suggest training
[] Just hang around the apartment
[] Write-in


=====​

You have one thousand, four hundred and thirty seven Grief marbles, and three Grief Seeds in your pockets.

Also, unless you guys vote not to, you'll presumably be going shopping with the others after lunch.
 
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[]Hang around the apartment unless Mami has other ideas.
-[]Fill Homura in on what happened. We told Mami that Kyubey'd lied to her about the soul gems and everything else. She seems to be doing better now but she needs friends, in the plural.
-[]When we're meeting up with Madoka and Sayaka, telepathy them and ask them not to ask Mami about Kyubey right now. Tell them he did something horrible and that we'll tell them it when Mami's ready to talk about it. For now, they should just warn us if they run into him.


Not seeing training as a priority for now. Here's a kneejerk vote idea.
 
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[x] Suggest training
- [x]
Magic training. We are great at using grief and our natural abilities, but we are pretty much hopeless when it comes to magic. At least get started on learning enchantment and containment magic
- [x] Try and come up with a finishing move. Maybe a giant 100m grief blade or something. We don't really need it, but it can't hurt.
 
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I don't really see that as an issue, or at least, not a long term issue. Mami's clinginess should fade away with time, once we get her to interact with other people more, and we're handling that with the group shopping trip later. Getting her back into her responsible sempai persona is probably one of the faster ways to rebuild her psyche, plus it gives her something to concentrate on other than the lichbomb.
 
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I don't really see that as an issue, or at least, not a long term issue. Mami's clinginess should fade away with time and once we get her to interact with other people more, and we're handling that with the group shopping trip later. Actually, getting her back into her responsible sempai persona might be one of the faster ways to rebuild her psyche.
Okay, worth a try then.

[x]Cannongerbil
 
[x] Cannongerbil
-[Q] Create a large grief Microwave as a finishing move. MICROWAVE EVERYTHING.
-[Q] Go home, Microwave some tea. Get kicked out for the crime against nature tea we made.
 
So, we're trying to come up with a special attack, and letting Mami name it or something?
 
I would like to raise the idea of using our time to explore/experiment with the nature of our grief control.

I am curious if we can change its default color because that opens a lot of doors for our abilities.
 
We should clarify to Homura, just for the sake of safety, that by "the nature of soulgems" we're only talking about the lichbomb, not the witchbomb. A misplaced word about witches that Homura thought Mami was now cleared for could do some damage1​. Also, when we get around to lichbombing Sayaka, I think Mami shouldn't be there unless she's a good deal more stable by then. Sayaka's first reaction is almost certainly going to be "ew gross" and Mami doesn't need to see her friends looking at her like that right now.

1: Not that I expect Homura to suddenly want to have an in-depth conversation about witching out. Not really sure if this counts as "covering our bases" or "shadowderps," but it will only take a second.​
 
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-[]When we're meeting up with Madoka and Sayaka, telepathy them and ask them not to ask Mami about Kyubey right now. Tell them he did something horrible and that we'll tell them it when Mami's ready to talk about it. For now, they should just warn us if they run into him.
Not sure about this one. It's a good warning, but it requires using telepathy...which means Kyubey. Which is potentially...problematic.
Plus, there's not a great likelihood of them bringing Kyubey up otherwise.

As for training...one one hand, it can be a productive way to take Mami's mind off of yesterday, alongside a bonding activity. Her teaching us stuff could also help her self-esteem. On the other hand, it could remind her about soul gems and Kyubey...hard to tell. Might I suggest adding something to the vote about gauging Mami's mood throughout, and cutting the training short if she seems to be more negatively affected by it than positively affected?

[X] Cannongerbil
 
Yeah. I was thinking that while reading the update. It's a logical conclusion to make since the nature of soul gems would include what happens when they go black.
Yeah... the only reason I'm calling it "possibly shadowderps" is because I can't really see Homura going out of her way to start a conversation about it with Mami. I mean, I've got this mental image of Mami and Homura sitting around at lunch at school, Sayaka's sick that day, Madoka isn't up to the roof quite yet, and Homura with all her social fu is desperately trying to come up with some sort of light, fluffy, pleasant small talk because she PROMISED us she'd try this "friends" thing so she turns to Mami and says "Have you asked Sabrina the name of your witch yet?" "My what now?"

Is kinda unlikely and verra silleh.
 
Someone should write an AU where Homura's very sociable but still awkward and inept and she keeps dropping truthbombs that cause psychological breaks.

"Alright, day 1 of the new loop! Gonna get this right! Oh hey, Madoka, you forgot to brush your teeth this morning. Here, I brought it from your house."
"...Um, how did-?"
"I've been following you and keeping you safe for TWELVE YEARS :D FROM THE FUTURE. Here lemme show you."
Time Stops. ....A few minutes later, has to Time Reset.

"Alright, let's try this again! Best friend take 54~!"
 
[X]Hang around the apartment unless Mami has other ideas.
-[X]Fill Homura in on what happened. We told Mami that Kyubey'd lied to her about the soul gems and everything else. She seems to be doing better now but she needs friends, in the plural.
-[X]When we're meeting up with Madoka and Sayaka, telepathy them and ask them not to ask Mami about Kyubey right now. Tell them he did something horrible and that we'll tell them it when Mami's ready to talk about it. For now, they should just warn us if they run into him.
 
Let's remember to tell Homura that Mami isn't aware of the nature of witches yet.

We don't want her to inadvertently slip.
 
Very tiny adjustment to artillery-hamster's vote:
[x] Suggest training: "Hey, Mami-sempai, you feeling up to teaching me how to get around without leaving craters everywhere?"
- [x] Magic training. We are great at using grief and our natural abilities, but we are pretty much hopeless when it comes to magic. At least get started on learning enchantment.
- [x] Try and come up with a finishing move. Maybe a giant 100m grief blade or something. We don't really need it, but it can't hurt. See if Mami has suggestions.


and assuming that the shopping trip is included in the upcoming update:
[x] Before meeting up with the others ask Mami what she wants to do Re: the Lichbomb. Spill the beans right away or ask that questions be held until the end of the day?
[x] Shopping list: clothes (practical and sturdy), mobile phone (so as to get rid of the QB router), extra bag (backpack for extra marble storage)
[x] Sayaka's house burnt down - she's gonna need a new everything - perfect opportunity for Mami to help out.
[x] During the trip discreetly inform Homu of exact specifics of what Mami knows so as to avoid foot-in-mouth syndrome. Explaining how we got Mami through it might also be handy (just in case...)
[x] Should the subject of QB come up in the trip deflect questions with, "He's on the shitlist. Tell you the specifics later, not here and now, 'k?"

Edit* added the vote to ask Mami what she wants done in case the others ask why she's upset today.
 
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Every time i think of floating orbs I think of that DBZ Piccolo attack. Surround the enemy with the physical/energy orbs, then converge them on the target with the force of a gunshot.
 
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