video;

[isnotokay]

[ When the video feed starts, it shows Annie in her uniform jacket with a distinctly flat expression that military sorts might recognize as a thousand-yard stare. The silence drags on unreasonably, though she doesn’t give any indication that she thinks it as such. (Hint: She doesn’t.) Finally, she speaks in a tone that's apathetic: ] Is natural gas available in this place? I need it to fill a certain type of canister.

[ Not that she needs it right now, but she lifts one of the canisters from her 3DMG to show it. There's a strategic value to this move by pretending she's lost that advantage. ]

Ah, I should ask after my squad, shouldn’t I? [ She says it almost as an afterthought. So she introduces herself bluntly: ] Annie Leonhart. Stohess District MP, under acting squad leader Marlowe Freudenberg.

[ Because apparently that should do the trick, right? Terse to a fault in such an unusual situation, she abruptly shuts off the feed. ]

Comments

[isnotokay]

Those people I mentioned were squadmates. I don't have friends.

[friendstime]

What? Everyone has friends! [Hey, don't write people off like that.]

You're a team, right? You have a connection.

[isnotokay]

No, you're wrong. In truth, we never liked each other at all.

[ Though she'd had something sort of like friends at one point, briefly, she thinks. ]

We were just doing our jobs.

[friendstime]

Hey. Don't just decide that kind of thing on your own. I don't know who your team is, but I don't think they'd all just say it was a job to work with you.

[He actually sounds serious about this.]

Maybe you don't realize it, but people care more than you think. You shouldn't take those kinds of bonds lightly.

[isnotokay]

Why are you so invested in that? You just admitted you don't know those people. You can't know what they think of a person like me.

[friendstime]

Eh? A person like you...? What's that supposed to mean?

[He's not letting this one go.]

Not knowing doesn't mean I can't be your friend. It just means we gotta get to know each other. You should take them more seriously, you know. I juts don't like that attitude, that's all.

[isnotokay]

If nothing else, you'd think it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, really, you shouldn't be so rough on my delicate, feminine feelings. Telling me my attitude is dislikable so openly like that... that's harsh.

[ All of this is delivered in that same unaffected tone that she started out with. ]