multiversallogs | Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.

Who: EVERYONE.
What: Swap meet.
Where: The Apache and surrounding environs.
When: Sukkardi the 14th of Haneden
Notes:
Swap Meet Spreadsheet: Pre-chosen swaps are green. Assigned are blue. There were a few characters that were selected more than once, so objects were assigned on a first-come first-serve basis. If you have any issues or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the mod team.
For objects that might not be immediately apparent as belonging to their owners, there may be a picture or name attached, or players are welcome to have their characters ~just know~ it's for them. Drr drr drr, bb.
Party post nights are a great time to come join the chatroom.
The topic threads are just suggestions; if you've got somewhere else that your characters simply must be, make your own thread.
Warnings: None yet. Please put warnings up on individual threads.

The Apache is much the same as it always is: dimly lit, with the jukebox playing in the background, and the bartender serving whatever's on tap.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Olivia had flipped through the album before coming here, hoping to give herself some idea of who she might be looking for - and sure enough, when she steps through the door, Clarice is one of the first people to catch her eye, and not just because of her unusual coloring.

Smiling in recognition, Olivia approaches the young woman and holds out the photo album when she reaches her. "I think this might belong to you."

"Oh - oh." Clarice recognizes the album, before she even has to open it. It was something she'd long forgotten, a fragment of her blown-apart childhood, and the way she takes it is nearly reverent.

"Thank you," she says feelingly, looking back up at Olivia. "This is... thank you so much."

She hadn't had anything of her parents or her brother left. Even before Baedal.

Olivia's smile grows a little softer at the girl's reaction - she may not know exactly what the circumstances behind it are, but she certainly understands the emotions themselves. She doesn't have much left to remind her of her mother, and even less of her real father, and she can imagine behind handed an album full of memories from a time when they were... happy.

"You're very welcome. I'm just glad I was able to get it back to you - you have a lovely family, and... I'm sure you must miss them very much."

"Yeah." It's a loaded syllable, but that's something she's going to have to deal with later, not in front of a stranger. She tucks it into the pack (empty now from where she'd been carrying Alan's glasses). "Can I buy you a drink?"

Olivia pauses for a second, a little surprised by the offer, and then gives a one-shouldered shrug and a quick grin. "Sure, why not?"

She gestures toward the bar with one hand, inviting the younger woman to lead the way. "My name's Olivia, by the way. What's yours?"

"Clarice. Most people call me Blink." At home, it had been to make herself harder to track down. Here, it was just habit.

"But you weren't expecting a family album quite like that." With a little girl so clearly xenian, presumably.

"Blink," she repeats with a smile, and considers asking the reason for the nickname, but decides against it. She doesn't want to risk prying into anything too personal. "It's nice to meet you."

She laughs a little at Clarice's comment, and shakes her head. "It was a little surprising, but... people coming from so many different universes, you can't really expect them to all look the same, can you?"

"I guess not. It's not... I stood out at home, too." Even with mutants out in the open, some had the privilege of passing. Clarice never had; most of the time she knows she wouldn't want to, but every now and then she thinks it might be nice to blend in. Just for an afternoon.

"Have you gotten whatever someone had of yours?" she asks as they come up to the bar area.

Olivia's smile turns sympathetic, with a hint of a grimace underlying it. "I'm sorry. That can't have been easy for you. At least here, people are... more or less accustomed to taking differences in stride."

She leans against the bar as they come to it, with a shake of her head in answer to Blink's question. "No. To be honest, I don't even know what I'm looking for. I can't think of anything from home that I miss that much. People, yes, and places, but..." She shrugs a little.

"Well, I didn't expect this," Clarice says with a smile of her own. She pauses so they can order, but once that's taken care of, she adds, "What sort of places?"

People feels too intrusive.

"Well... my apartment and my own bed, for one," Olivia answers with a little laugh. "I don't really get homesick, but I definitely miss it. And the lab where I work."

Worked.

She pauses thoughtfully for a moment before adding, "I think I miss the lab more than my apartment, actually. I guess that's a little strange when you consider it's full of weird science experiments and our scientist's pet cow and the occasional corpse, but... I guess it's become home for me. I can find another apartment, but I can't replace that."

"No - I can understand that. It's not always about the place you sleep; it's about the place you live." She's often thought about all the people in Baedal for whom it's a prison - an interruption in a life that otherwise could have been lived normally. She can imagine it colors the place differently.

She doesn't want to dwell on the science experiments. Olivia doesn't seem like she'd be doing anything unethical, but you can't always tell that by looking, and Clarice doesn't really want to talk about the subject anyway.

Instead, she adds, "And I imagine work can be hard to translate here. I heard the career office is a weird experience."

Spend enough time with Walter Bishop and you start to forget most people might be unnerved by casual mention of weird science experiments. Were she actually considering it, she certainly couldn't blame Blink for being a little unsettled by the subject - if Olivia weren't knee-deep in the whole thing, she might be unsettled by it too, considering her past.

Olivia smiles a little wryly at Blink's comment and nods. "It definitely was. Though maybe that's just because I've never really had to look for a job. I always knew what I wanted to be, since I was a little kid..."

"Really?" That's a little easier, and Blink grabs their drinks so they can move down a few seats, where it's not quite so much in the way of people trying to get the bartender's attention. "A scientist, or anything particular?"

Olivia follows her, laughing softly and shaking her head at the question. "No, not a scientist at all, I just... stumbled into working with them. I'm actually in the FBI, and I was a Marine before that. My dad was too, and when I was little I always wanted to grow up to be just like him."

There's more than that, of course, motivations a lot less normal and healthy, but that's not the sort of thing you go telling to a stranger.

"What about you? What do you do?"

"Oh, um. Where I'm from, most people don't really have... jobs, in the conventional sense. I'm a soldier, I guess, or I was." She sips at her drink. "I'm in the foghunters' guild, here, though, which I suppose is a job. It pays the bills, anyway."

Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.

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