Whether he actually could be called a 'car' had been a matter of some debate, even back when the other matter hadn't been.
Kunzite smiled, seeing the little nun smiling up at him. Lumena Mata looked well, for all that he'd heard she'd been ill. He'd tried to go see her at the hospital and had made sure he wouldn't just forget about it for once, but that utterly idiotic and lethal mess - AKA Lady Beryl and the Stadium Incident- had chosen just that time to blow wide open, and by the time the dust had settled around that little caper, she'd already gotten out.
Ahh, well. She looked alright now, at least... He remembered her following him around and singing to him, and smiled again. Not that he could move around very quickly when he had been younger, but...
"Lady Beryl, Prince Darien - this is the Abbess Sotalkia..."
The small Car nodded at that, regally.
"And the is the Lumena Mata, who taought me how to read and write..."
Well actually, more important, she had taught him how to talk, to the great surprise of several Master Mechanic types in general, but that wasn't something that needed to be mentioned now, surely...
He introduced the rest of the little group, too, the Cars he recognized, at least. He wasn't expected to know most of the young ones of course, thank goodness...
And here came Zoicite, motors purring near silently as usual.
"So that's the nun who was sick, eh? ...Cute."
"Well yes, she is, I think. I'm biased, though."
Zoicite snickered. "Heh."
"Yes, yes..." Kunzite murmured. Zoicite looked well in a deep vibrant blue shading into green and grey today. Though he would have looked really spectacular in bright vermillion, even if it probably would have made him look like a girl. Well, even more like a girl.
It was Kunzite's turn to snicker, then. It didn't seem to matter at all what colors or patterns Zoicite wore - he still managed to look more feminine then half the real females at Court, every single time. Black, grey, mud-brown - it didn't seem to matter a damn, frankly.
Jedite had said that according to his sources, Zoi's birth color had actually been a bright red, much to the dismay of his father - oops, no, no, no thinking of Zoicite's father if he could help it at all, because it was just too easy to let something slip and -
Well, everybody that knew a certain small and quite frankly pretty Car at all well pretty much agreed that mentioning Zoicite's father around him, in any way or form, was Not A Good Idea. It just - wasn't, that was all.
Well, anyway, since looking like a girl seemed to be well-neigh unavoidable in his case, Kunzite sort of wished that Zoi would try getting himself painted a bright red. At least once.
He'd look cute, he thought.
...Errr...
He sighed, then, putting that thought away in a mental compartment for further perusal when he'd have time for it. Which was never, probably, at this rate, but whatever.
The first time he'd seen Zoi, the little roadster had been making laps in one of the training tracks, quite literally burning rubber, and...
"Ha ha, that's Zoi. Zoicite." Nephrite had told him, snickering. "Fast, eh? Well, they don't call him the speed demon for nothing..."
"He had stared, gap-jawed. "That's a battery car?"
"Well, yes. Well, he's not the first Electric Vehicle that can burn rubber, but..."
"Mmmmmmm." Kunzite had muttered. "Um... he?"
Nephrite had nearly burst out laughing. "Yes, yes, Zoicite is a he, I checked, alright? I don't know what his parents were thinking of, giving him a gender-neutral name like that, but..."
"Mmmmmm." Kunzite had murmured again. He thought it was a fitting name, somehow, but...
And then the little Car had caught sight of him, and had nearly ended up plowing into the walls. Ahh, well, such was life, for him, anyway...
And that had been...more then 2 years ago, now? Heavens, how time flew...
Oh, and speaking of Zoicite... Kunzite went and sneaked a peek at his battery levels, then. Darn, he was down to less then 90 percent already. It was still far from dangerous levels, of course, but...
"Oh. And this is Zoicite."
Oops. He wasn't supposed to introduce him to the Lumera Mata first, but...well, nobody seemed to be noticing. Alright, then.
Mata exchanged greetings with Zoi and then came closer and smiled up at him, window-eyes twinkling even more then before. Um, what?
"Ohhh, she's pretty! Is she an Electric Vehicle?"
"Um...Zoi's a he, actually... And yes, he is a all-battery car."
"...Oh." The little Car seemed somewhat nonplussed at that. "Oops. Well...He is a friend of yours, anyway, isn't he?"
"...I think so?"
"Hmmm. Do you think he'll be annoyed with me if I told him he was pretty, anyway?"
"...Um. 'Goodlooking' would be better, I think..."
"'Goodlooking' it is, then!" The little nun smiled at him once more and rolled away to say just that. Kunzite looked after her, nonplussed. There was this feeling that he was just sort of missing something here, now.
Kunzite sighed, then. First he'd been this speedy little gap-jawed Car, and then he'd become somebody he had to tutor - there was no need for anybody outside the team (and Lady Beryl maybe) to know that what he actually was tutoring Zoi was in the three R's, since it had turned out that Zoi's access to any kind of formal education up to that point had been something between zilch and I-don't-think-so, and...
Just when had Zoicite turned into somebody'd who'd come over to his rooms - when he was in his real baseline form, to boot - and just stay to natter and plug himself in and steal his electricity, anyway? Not to mention chew on any spare tires and cables lying about, when he was sleeping. Which was often, since Zoi usually did get sleepy when plugged in.
Zoicite was... Kunzite sighed, and smiled, again.
"Hey, Kunz?" Zoicite had bounced into his room as usual, complaining about something Nephrite had done, or maybe hadn't done.
"Mmmmm?"
"I must be getting used t'how you look, you know?" Zoicite had grinned at him.
"Well you'd better, you're here often enough..."
He was Zoicite, that was all. A friend.
It was...interesting to have such things as friends. Especially since he'd never thought he'd actually have any. Now he had Nephrite, and Jedite, and even the Prince maybe, and...
Kunzite shook his head, then. Lumera Mata and Zoi had their bumpers almost sticking together, talking about heavens knows what. Zoi was snickering, for some reason. So was Mata, which was somewhat more disturbing.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Cables and manipulators hummed. The large Vehicle slept on
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(Posted Tue, 07 Nov 2006 09:40)
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