pain, pancakes & parley [ozera/pankaa]

Ozera always valued the intellectual prowess of her close peers— Pankaa in particular just had a certain unique factor to his genius; something that Ozera would compare to a complex crystalline structure never before seen, perhaps it was one of a kind. Being allowed to work together for class projects was always nice, and every time they had achieved high praise and acknowledgement. Generally there was a sort of guide on what to ultimately achieve and things to use in any given project, but this time was different. At this point in their education their class was effectively given free reign within a certain time limit to see what they could achieve without the usual specifications and guidance— this in itself was a test to truly see how the students understood time management and project scale when studying.

While hanging out and discussing the project in general as far as their ideas on what to do were going, someone ended up knocking on the door. Gently setting down some strange rock that she was showing to Pankaa, Ozera held up a hand and gave the Avali a signal that she would go and answer the door. Humming a tune, Ozera made her way over to the door with a little dance.

Opening the door with her tail, Ozera was met with someone that looked like they were trying to not look awful. “Pancakes? We sell ice cream from the store attached to the building.” Ozera said flatly with a neutral expression— her statement was true, the business side of the building was an ice-cream parlour. Without missing a beat, she dropped that line of conversation entirely in favor of what was more likely to have brought this person here. Ozera tilted backwards and called into the house. “Yo, Pankaa! There is a—” Ozera paused briefly, giving Kabe a glance over, spotting their tail and nodding to herself. “— short Saiyan here asking about you and—” She paused for a bit longer this time, blinking before speaking to Kabe. “If I may ask, what exactly are your pronouns? I wouldn’t like to assume anything. Myself and the concept of assumptions are not on speaking terms.”

Ozera gave a small nod when Pankaa gave his thoughts on the clone brother-son situation. In either interpretation it was certainly something with extra and unconventional steps. “Ultimately I think figuring out where exactly you stand is up to you and Bee. Seems like a pretty important discussion to have.” Important discussions happened to be why Kabe was here in the first place, so surely he could figure out another one in due time. Different topics entirely, to be fair, but important all the same.

Noticing Pankaa partially start to panic, Ozera gently put a hand on his shoulder to try and ground him, or otherwise help him ground himself. Soon enough, the Avali had pulled himself together, even putting his own hand on her shoulder; all in all showing a sort of bravery that he maybe didn’t know the full significance of at the moment, but Ozera was proud of him. Pankaa still blamed himself though, which was sad for a number of reasons, but progress was progress and trauma wasn’t ever defeated overnight.

Hearing Bee’s full name and now the name of the Saiyan before her, Ozera couldn’t help but snicker. “Kabe, Kay-bee, haha_aaa^a, I get it. That’s kinda funny.”

Ozera listened silently and patiently as this was mostly a conversation for Kabe and Pankaa to have, she was mostly here for moral support and to be a sort of mediator as a sort of third party since she wasn’t directly involved in any of these events, she was only told about them.

When Kabe explained how he had found Pankaa, Ozera blinked and looked at Kabe with interest. “Oh, that’s energy sensing— but it seems to be based on a memory or key feeling? That’s unique. My cousin would find that intriguing. Do you know if it’s genetic or simply unique to you? Maybe not if you’re new to it... Oh well.”

“‘Wait what’? Really? Don’t be ridiculous, you heard what I said, and you know what I inferred.” She nodded firmly, as if that was going to conclude that line of conversation definitively without any room for confusion.

She otherwise let Pankaa and Kabe converse for a bit. When asked if they had anything to help with injuries she responded in a way that could be considered blunt, but it was in truth a simply literal statement. “We have ice.” After a pause, she clarified. “Because we also own an ice parlour.” Ozera stepped back for a moment and pulled some highly advanced cooling packets from a nearby drawer. “Also, hospital grade coolant relief. My cousin Isikiy sometimes just leaves behind stuff from work like this. I’ll leave it be if you at least take this.” She offered it to Kabe, with a gaze that very much had ‘take it or else’ written all over it.

Pankaa did eventually make an effort to be a bit more respectful about his brother’s fiancé, which earned him a smile from Ozera. That aside, she prioritized being Pankaa’s emotional support here when the conversation regarding other more personal issues continued. It wasn’t easy seeing him blame himself for things that weren’t his fault.

A lot of people blamed themselves for things that weren’t their fault apparently— Kabe included. Ozera didn’t understand why people did this at all. However, since she knew little about whatever happened between Kabe and Dion, she remained silent.

That was, until Kabe questioned her directly. “I know of him well enough. Yes, I believe he is a good person.” She once again responded bluntly without any bells or whistles so to speak, just a firm fact in her mind. Of course, once more, she realized she wasn’t on her own or solely in the company of people that understood her thought processes. “First of all, chicken little over here doesn’t stop talking about how much he admires him. Secondly, he is Guru. That alone should say more than enough, anyone with even the most surface level knowledge on Namek’s culture would know that the planet itself will only ever choose a good person as its voice. Thirdly, you’ve spoken your own evidence towards confirmation of my earlier statement. He healed Pankaa, he healed Bee, and who knows how many more of various curses. Need I say more?”