multiversallogs | if one day is good, is a day sufficient?

Entry tags:

if one day is good, is a day sufficient?

Who: Benji Ryans and You!
What: The city is rebuilding itself, and as does everyone else. Benji about town.
Where: Various places!
When: Many times!
Notes: An open log! Refer to the post content for starter ideas. Hit me up if you'd like me to set up anything! Otherwise, go for gold. Suggestions: daylit Mafaton, Aspic, Badside, Brock Marsh, but you know, wherever is clever, Trevor, ask if you're unsure. (Also dream things are welcome, if you are keen, but let me know first in plurk or PM.)
Warnings: Dead eye stares, and teal deers below. Will add as they occur.

There is a morning where she brings her violin with her. The case gets laid out on the street, and her first attempt at playing levels off into obscurity; that no one wants to listen to mediocre musicianship for long at least saves her from the agony of completing the piece. She never necessarily performs; she sits on the stone steps of some building that's being advertised for lease, lanky legs together and aside, ankles crossed, a demure shape in black and grey and an aura of unkemptness that speaks more of habit than it does being windswept and interesting. She thinks of Victorian literature with unusually talented orphans busking for bread, and remembers her cousin playing the piano with her to an audience of three to five, cigarette smoke in the air and then slightly condescending applause, and quietly attempts to play again.

She won't earn much even then, but at least this time, the music winds complete over the cobble stones, mewling out its stilted melody.

Her errands take her to different reaches of the city. She has an allowance for cab fare and train rides, but likes to walk; it's a good way to get to know the city, even if it means setting aside a couple of hours for slower travel. Since signing up with the Personification Initiative, she's been able to earn wages for the first time in her life. Frivolous forays into playing music on the street corners have been exactly that: frivolous. She teaches literacy to adults, those who arrive in Baedal without the necessary skills to survive. She hears about the Spatters, as well, and the House that offers similar services, and occasionally winds up walking those streets, attempting to avoid the ones where it seems like the Fog is thicker than usual.

Food is bought in outdoor markets in early mornings, contributing a little to what she takes from Njoki's pantry. Sometimes she will even sit down somewhere and buy some tea and a muffin and feel incredibly indulgent for it. Clothing is primarily bought from second hand places, judged by its practicality and comfort and whatever aesthetics she's feeling that day. Books are usually borrowed from the Library, dependent on their availability, and usually not for herself, but those she tries to teach. She is not an expert, but knows that people will only do things if they want to do things, and she selects nonfictions of vivid interest, slim short story compilations, things she thinks those she tutors would find interesting.

At night, she sleeps. Sometimes she dreams.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This corner of Baedal has become familiar in more ways than just the immediate. There are whole streets in New York City that do not look like a warzone, really, and seems simply rundown. The main difference is not so much that, but the amount of life. Although Badside may not be teeming, there is still life here; there are murals and graffiti on the walls that have opinions instead of just warnings, and people coming and going and drifting by. Benji is an inoffensive addition, and she is starting to relate to this place as home.

She has a suede brown three quarter coat with a missing button and sleeves a little too short for her, but it's comfortable and not too warm. Neutral grey cotton shapelessness hangs from her shoulders and almost down to her knees, with darker denim on her legs, stuff into boots that sound dull against the pavement. A leather messenger bag bumps against her hip as she moves.

Counting buildings on her way to the address that Mermaid gave her, she stops outside the place, turning on a heel to approach and to knock.

The figure who answers the door is not Shrieky. He's a willowy Xenian with a glazed look in his eyes and skin like the bark of a tree, and he stares vacantly at Benji for a good few moments, before his housemate has the chance to shout, "It's for me!" and dart towards the door to meet her. Upon his arrival, the Xenian slinks away without a word, into one of the rooms adjacent to the corridor.

Shrieky pushes the door wide open, to let Benji in past him, "I'm sorry about that. He doesn't come out very much anymore, so I didn't think he'd get to the door first. Please come in?"

There's a nervous, happy excitement about him. He doesn't get too many visitors here, and it's exciting to have someone come over! Even if it is just because she wants to help him with his hideous nightmares.

Getting used to faces that she would consider unusual is a thing that is slow going, but progressing. Her new position in life means that she meets a great many different kinds of people, and so when that strange-skinned xenian opens the door, her eyes widen in surprise mainly that he is not who she expected to see as opposed to what. A smile begins, one she hopes comes across as reassuring, but nothing further when Mermaid is appearing. Good, she didn't wind up at the wrong place.

Stepping neatly inside, she shakes her head. "It's fine. If he the only other one here? Besides you."

"That's right, it's just us now!" His expression shifts very slightly as he glances after the retreating xenian, there's a fondness there. A gratefulness, and something else. What he feels is not quite as distinct as sorrow, but some knowing of a loss that's not quite finished yet.

His attention flicks naturally back towards Benji, and his smile warms again, "I've cooked! If you're hungry? I used to eat everything raw, but they showed me how to make some things while we were all living here. Do you like nut roast? Or hummus? We have some bread as well, but I didn't make that..."

"Oh, I'll have what you're having," seems like a safe course of response, but not disingenuous. Strange people can be charming, and Shrieky easily qualifies. It also has her eyes picking out the evidence of gills still marring his skin, inspiring again the usual fount of questions Benji would ask if she didn't think it might be rude or abrupt, so her teeth find her bottom lip instead as she follows him through the house, not moving with as much quiet precision as she did in the dream.

In person, that seems to be the running theme. There is less of an ideal version of herself in reality. "I miss cooking. When I have a kitchen of my own, I should pay you back the favour."

In the kitchen, there's a bread tin cooling on top of the oven, containing a crisp, brown slab of what presumably was once nuts, before they were minced and reformed into a loaf shape. Shrieky tips the tin over and taps on the bottom lightly so the loaf falls onto a cutting board. This done, he cuts two generous slices, and puts them out onto plates. There's a large bowl of hummus on the side of the counter, and he adds a dollop of this to each plate as well, before grabbing a loaf of bread, and taking the whole loaf as well as both plates over to the dining table (or rather, to the many small tables which have been shoved together to form one long dining table).

"I-- I'm not very good at cooking, I don't think? I don't really like using the ovens." Shrieky offers, somewhat apologetically, as he glances back towards Benji, "But I like making things. That's why I like hummus, actually, because normally, you'd have nut roast with potatoes, or carrots or something? But you need to cook those on the hob, and I really dislike using the hob..."

So instead you get... a somewhat mismatched meal, Benji. But it was made with love!

Fortunately, Benji is legitimately used to eating a great manner of mismatched meals set in front of her, to the point where not commenting on the oddity isn't just her being kind. This one is certainly new, anyway, but not unwelcome, moving to sit down and draw her plate over. The messenger bag is set down to lean against her leg, and she keeps her coat on sort of out of habit rather than rudeness or intention to leave any time soon; it's comfortable, so.

"To be honest, I'm better at baking than, you know, that sort of cooking," Benji says, watching as the food is set down before reaching to tear some bread for herself. Table manners are subjective. "It's just being careful about quantities and then letting it work on its own. Anything harder and I'm really very liable to hurt myself."

Edited 2012-05-12 11:51 (UTC)

There's a stack of knives and forks in the middle of the table, but Shrieky doesn't bother with them. Instead, he breaks off a morsel of the nut roast with his fingers, and pops it in his mouth. Yes, table manners are subjective.

"What kind of things do you bake?" He breaks off some more of his nut roast, tilting his head speculatively, "There used to be someone on our cohort, who baked things. He made a souffle, and flan. He disappeared a little while ago though."

She's happy to alternate between both, slivering off some of the nut roast with her fork, trying it with the hummus. There's a glance up at the mention of someone disappearing, a fact of life here that never leaves her feeling very secure, but it's not the part of Shrieky's words she pursues. "Nothing so fancy. There's-- my aunt, she called it 'flies graveyard', I don't know, it's just a slice. It's sort of a cakey thing with fruit; raisins and dates, apricots.

"I was going to make that for the person who's been housing me, actually. I'm moving soon, again." And they will absolutely talk about dreams, but maybe not while they both have an appetite. Benji is a relatively dainty eater, mostly because she just generally is about most things.

Shrieky takes a break from picking at his nut roast to tear off some bread for himself, and sweep it through the hummus. It's like a delicious edible spoon, "Flies graveyard? And... the fruits are supposed to be the flies? Because they are small and dark in the same way?"

He takes another sweep of hummus, and pushed the bread all the way into his mouth, before holding his hand up to block the view of it while he chewed. "Who is housing you now? And where are you going?"

Mouth now emptied, he wipes the back of his hand across his lips and glances at Benji's plate, "Is it good? Oh, would you like some water as well? Sometimes I forget to drink..."

A nod in confirmation. "Not a desperate effort to sound appealing," she concedes, before nodding at the offer of water, along with a smile. As Shrieky sets about with that, Benji continues at the gradual diminishing of her plate, tearing shreds off her helping of bread. "There's a house in Badside that, mm. Someone I met, Wolfgang, he's fixing it up a little," she says. "I was living in Mafaton with this very generous lady, Ki, who let me stay there for a while until I could find something better, but I think moving out here would be better."

He's running her a glass of water when she mentions Wolfgang, and he spins on his heel to fire a suddenly overwhelmingly happy grin at her, "Wolfgang? You mean, the boy with the long white hair? I'm going to live with him as well!" He keeps his attention on her for a moment too long, and the cup overflows, chilling his hand with cold water. Pulling it out from under the tap, he turns off the faucet and goes to approach the table again, "He is incredible, isn't he? He looks like a statue, or a painting..."

Too perfect to be real. Apparently Shrieky is pretty shallow...

Well.

To be fair. Wolfgang.

She lets that conversation line end there, however, responding to it with a quirk of a smile as she studies the other xenian. "The house in Badside? Well, that's good. It's very lovely-- I mean, it's old and needs some work, but it will be very lovely." The news of Shrieky's moving in-ness is taken with grace enough that Benji manages not to express how much of an improvement that will be for the Mermaid.

"That helps us, I think. With your dreams."

"I'm really excited about living with more people again. This place always feels terribly quiet now."

Water delivered, he sinks back down to his place at the table, opposite her, and returns to pull off another piece of his nut roast.

"Living together, you mean? I guess, it would be more convenient, would it?"

The violin isn't necessarily an instrument that Clio would choose - she feels most at home with loud drums and screechy guitars - but she still likes music simply for the fact it's music. And so when she hears Benji playing, Clio walks over and finds a spot nearby to sit and listen.

It's about halfway through Benji's song that Clio realizes she's singing along and her voice catches in her throat with panic. But no, she's just singing, not keening, and there's no death approaching. But she doesn't start singing again; this is the first time she's tried since coming to Baedal (since leaving the facility) and her voice still feels too raw.

Instead, she keeps listening, and at the end of the song she walks over and drops a few shekels into the violin case.

"Thank you." For what, she isn't entirely sure, but it feels necessary.

Edited (proofreading is for chumps) 2012-05-05 10:49 (UTC)

It's a few shekels amongst another-- few shekels, really. This is not the most profitable way to earn a living, and Benji isn't doing herself many favours by huddling up here on this stoop, more engaged in what she's doing that making it worthy of listening to. But music is music, and the violin can be pretty when you know what to do with it remotely, and she heard that voice, for as long as it lasted.

"Oh, thank you," she says, not quite shy, more demure. She also doesn't get up, content to peer up at Clio, stretching out her fingers as if she'd been tensing them through her playing. The violin is lowered. "Was that you I heard back then?"

"Yes, that was me," Assuming that Benji is talking about the singing, since Clio can't think what else it would be, "Sorry if it was rude of me, it's just... been a while. And I liked your music."

She doesn't think there are rules against singing along - unless she'd been trying to steal paying costumers ("paying customers") from Benji - but the apology is there anyway, just in case. She doesn't want to make enemies here.

Benji doesn't appear to be in the market for enemies right now, even if she tends to stare kind of hard and cold even when she doesn't mean to. "It wasn't rude," she says dismisses. "You're very kind to like my music, because it's not very good." She doesn't think so, anyway, but he doesn't know many amateur violinists, as it stands.

She certainly isn't bad. "I was more wondering why you stopped."

Clio could say she likes all music (unture, disco is literally the worst thing) but she goes another route, "A little unpractised, maybe, but I think it was still good." And sometimes unpractised is better; Clio tends to prefer more natural performances, rather than fancy, technically good concertos and the like.

The second statement is harder to answer, "I was --" Held captive and had cold iron shoved in her mouth so she couldn't sing, but that's not something she'll discuss with anyone except her close friends, "It's been a while, and it didn't feel right."

She'd tried and failed to find Ilde's lament, and she wonders if she'll have to wait until someone dies for singing to feel right again.

Maybe she's an artist, and that's why it has meaning. Benji would not call herself the same-- she's always felt particularly uncreative in comparison to others-- but can understand sensitivity. She assumes, and she has to assume because asking strangers personal questions is a temptation she tries to avoid, that the woman's vague words speak a little of displacement.

"Well, it was nice of you to share," she says, bending further down to drag closer the open case and collect up the coinage. "Did you used to sing, before here? I don't think I've ever really earned for my music before."

"I sung in a punk band, a long time ago," It wasn't really that long ago, but six years feels like a hundred when there's an apocalypse in between. And when she doubts she'll ever see anyone from her old life again. London is a long way away (especially when she can't cross oceans without great difficulty).

"I don't think I earned much for it either, we weren't especially popular," Decent enough, and with a small following, but they never got very big. She wonders if things might've been different in that alternate universe she keeps hearing about.

Wolfgang feels better this week -- emotionally, not so much physically, but the physical side is just something he's learned to deal with. So he still loses time, so he still falls asleep in random, inconvenient places, so he can't get rid of that nagging anxiety that sometimes makes it hard to go outside -- so life goes on.

He's dressed to reflect that, anyway, with obvious effort and care, although he still has paint under his nails he can never quite get out all the way and one of his fingers is in a splint. (Lesson learned: hammers and cataplexy do not mix.) Shani's necklace is an uncomfortable weight tucked underneath the collar of his shirt; he's not sure he likes it.

Lately he is learning how to be more assertive. This is turning out to be more difficult than previously thought, so when someone he met at one of his friend's parties (whose name he isn't even sure he remembers) corners him, he finds himself unable to say kindly fuck off like he sort of wants to. So making up a lame excuse it is, and when he gazes around, he only sees one person he knows.

Excusing himself, he sidles up to Benji and offers her a slightly wan smile. "Hello," he says, a hopeful/hunted look on his face. "Can we pretend I was meant to be here all along?" Help.

Scarves displayed in a veritable curtain of colour are what have Benji's attention when Wolfgang approaches. The seller, now prodding and poking at some other prospective buyer, had said something about magic weaved into their fabric and this inspires a vague amount of uncertainty. But they're attractive, silken, and when she is quite sure the vendor isn't looking, picks up a fringed end to toy with between clean fingertips, and something previously purchased wrapped in paper and tucked under an arm.

In contrast to the wild array of colours, her wardrobe's palette is predictably drab, greys and blacks and muted blues, but by now, recognisable for it.

When someone sidles on over, the dropping of the cloth she's inspecting so that it can fall back into place is either guilty or just. Freeing herself of obligation to buy it, hands neatly tangling together. But it isn't the vendor, looking up, and Wolfgang's wan smile is met with a brighter one, and then a glance as if to spy who is more annoying than Benji's company.

"I'll even pretend you're on time," she says, turning on a heel to face him. "And you can distract me from all the pretty things." Well, inanimate objects.

"Oh, good, I hate jerks who are pretend late." That's a joke, ha ha. He's heard people make those, people who aren't from Planet Supermodel, where everyone lies around all day looking artfully sad. Wolfgang is distinctly not looking in the direction he came from, although he fervently hopes the guy he is trying to ditch isn't watching them, because that would turn him from kind of annoying to creepy and he is not prepared to deal with creepy.

So, aggressive ignoring is happening, then.

Unfortunately he is the worst choice when it comes to distractions from pretty inanimate objects, given that he spends roughly half his day agonizing over accessorizing. (Pocket squares are absolutely serious business.) "Window shopping?" He's getting this weird twinge that he's coming to realise is sensing the presence of other people's magic around. This happens all the time because it's ubiquitous in Baedal, but frankly he is curious as he glances over the wares. There are a lot of kinds of useful spells that could be woven into fabric, or at least he can think of a lot.

Benji cannot think of any, in that most things magic-wise she can imagine up don't really ever make it into that realm of plausability, and it's all too new for it to become natural. The joke is enough of one to win a smirk, before she's tilting a look back at the colours, a line drawing between her brows. To her senses, all ordinary five ones, its colour and texture. Benign charms, on the other hand, play at Wolfgang's.

"Window shopping," is repeated, like it's a necessary step towards parsing what it's supposed to mean, or remembering it. It seems to work. "Mmhm, just looking. Granted I've never had to consider if something might magically strangle me."

Or, like, shopped, window or otherwise, but she's mastered the basics.

"That seems like it would be a poor business plan." His tone is light and his face is -- he's not smiling exactly but gives the impression of nearly being there, like the ghost of one. It is easy to joke about but it's too close on the heels of the memory of another enchanted item sold in plain sight.

He is telling himself that they closed those holes in the cliff-side, that they're harmless now. It's not helping much. But if he looks a little sad, it's probably because he always looks a little sad.

"If it helps, I think they're just anti-staining spells, things like that." He can't be sure without picking the spell apart the way someone else would, say, a lock, but he thinks he would recognise that kind of malevolent intent now that he's felt it once before.

She remembers dreams rather well. Not with any kind of supernatural clarity, but in the way one remembers an event taking place in the ordinary world of the waking, just as fast to fade. But the crumpling of the hunterbot had been rather remarkable and so of course Wolfgang knows magic. Of course it isn't just a theoretical wildness.

Maybe, then, it's as off-colour to joke about their dangers as it would be to remark on the same thing in her homeworld. It isn't really a thing she flusters over, Wolfgang's response understated, almost tired, tolerant. Benji just says an ah of understanding, interested, but--

"I'd need them to magic away the guilt of buying scarves when someone's housing me," she says, turning away from them, taking a step to head deeper into the bazaar. "Come on, we'll go disappear around here and you'll be home free."

"Now I'm sure that is a spell someone's done." And it's probably illegal, magicking things to plant suggestions in people's heads that they ought to buy them regardless of their funds. There are a number of extremely paranoid directions his mind can take him when it comes to magic, basically, and he seems aware of this and like maybe he should.

Stop bringing them up. Paranoia is a symptom, his brain is telling him, which is a thought he shoves somewhere and ignores.

Wolfgang follows obediently and slightly sheepishly, but giant brightly-coloured stork person that he is, disappearing is a bit of a struggle. At least Aspic's crowded and colourful enough that he is hardly the most unusual-looking person around; that honour would go to the nine foot tall xenian chap with the single red eye. "I'm not very good at distracting, on... that note..." Yes the note from several minutes ago, good job. He feels too awkward to live, or at least like he should be buried somewhere where he's incapable of opening his mouth.

It's possible the expectation of a clean escape is informed a bit by Benji's remarkable talent for fading into the woodwork herself, but the Aspic bazaar does bring about all shapes and sizes. She twists a glance up in polite inquiry as to what Wolfgang is talking about, before she backtracks and says; "Oh. No, you aren't." Amusement, mild enough to be dry. "But I probably, you know..."

Should have guessed. There's a gesture, loose, in an attempt to indicate the bright and carefully crafted visage of Wolfgang's wardrobe, before she spies the fingerbrace somewhat late, which probably isn't an accessory-- "Oh, what did you do to yourself?"

"Oh, um." Wolfgang glances down at his hand, cringing, then gives this helpless little shrug when he looks up again. "I don't know why anyone lets me play with hammers," he says, sounding half exasperated, half resigned. He doesn't actually need to explain what's going on with him for that to make sense on its own -- he has this absent-minded flightiness about him combined with zero common sense, it is honestly more surprising he still has the whole hand.

"On the plus side, the power's on." Okay, no, he is a little pleased with himself for having managed to do that project and not killed anything even a little bit, least of all his dignity, which he never had to begin with.

Her brow draws together at play with hammers, an amused brand of concern that is not made insincere just because he and his injury happen to also be precious. "I'm still amazed you're doing so much of it on your own," she says, her tone devoid of any real heckling. "And so fast. It took me a little while to figure out, you know, tools. But I had a good teacher."

Which is not a thing she elaborates on, even if the ever present urge to ramble tugs at her words. It's still difficult, conversational brushing even peripherally against the people she knew before. Instead;

"So, you think it'll be ready soon?"

"I've got a little experience, um -- with fixing stuff, and there's the..." Wolfgang does the vaguest gesture in the world, ultimately ending up in what looks suspiciously like jazz hands. "Mystical woo-woo crap." Yes... that thing.

"Mm-hm. There's still the kitchen to do, but um..." He shrugs. He's got a hot plate and a mini fridge, it's not super vital. "And furniture." It's frustrating -- people tend to be accommodating of newcomers here, and even if they're not, it shouldn't be hard to buy things on credit and make payments. But he's branded; many stores won't even let him through the door, let alone sell to him on credit. It's cash up front or nothing.

He has options, though. He can create gold -- which is a grey area, legally -- or there are any number of wealthy people whom he knows would be glad to financially assist him. There are ethical concerns either way.

"I'm thinking sometime next week -- if you want to come by sometime."

"I'll do that," Benji agrees, easily, and it turns out Wolfgang was unintentionally lying; it's a lot easier to not moon over things in the bazaar when she's chatting to someone, still taking in the sensory overload of all of these things without halting to touch and prod.

Mostly. Her teeth set down on her bottom lip, her attention inevitably snagged on a tilted display of secondhand books, enough to quickly read the spines as they move passed it without actually slowing their meander. "It's a good thing you offered," she adds. "I find myself going to Badside a lot to tutor, and it's not terribly far from Mafaton, just. Far enough to be grateful to not do that."

"Mm, commuting can be a pain. Especially to Mafaton. I heard there's still a lot of rebuilding there?" It's a question because he only ever sets foot in there under extreme desperation -- they pay better for donations than the hospital does. Wolfgang was around for the riots; cruorvores freak him out.

He notes her attention being caught by books, because -- well, he's the same way. For him it's an indulgence he can't afford right now, but that apparently isn't stopping him because he pauses to look them over. The collection he had amassed blew up with the inn he was staying in before the invasion and he's still a little bitter about it. "You're a teacher?"

Well if we're stopping--

Despite these recent cues, she probably wouldn't describe herself to be particularly bookish or academic, not on the same scale as actual nerds. But they're valuable things, all the same, and easily lost. "I suppose I am, now," Benji says, a sort of apologetic humour in her tone. "Not in a-- I haven't gone to school. But I learned reading and writing one on one, and the social services here, they sometimes need tutors for people who come from worlds where that isn't a necessary or available thing.

"So." The 'so' is sort of an I needed the money shrug addition. "Hopefully it isn't too much the blind leading the blind. And I think--" Because she forgot to answer, before. "--that Mafaton's seen better days. It's very quiet." Also she never walks through it at night, no matter what Njoki's said of its governance.

"That's --" Cool he doesn't say because it sounds really juvenile and flippant, and everything else he can think of doesn't sound right either. He pauses, clearly wracking his brain, then flaps a hand and makes a face of augh, this language. "English... Admirable, I guess? Something less patronizing." What he means is that he's impressed, basically. "How do you like it?"

She shrugs, eyes trained on book spines, more shy than dismissive; but pleased at the approval in contrast to feeling like an imposter of some kind. Where there are schools and universities, people who have done more than just scrape by. But she's not going to argue. "Oh, I like it. I mean, it's a bit--" A hand gesture, fingers splaying, curling. "It's sad. A lot of people have seen social workers already and they just sort of cycle through the system they have set up here, in Baedal.

"It feels sort of unkind to say I enjoy it, but I like helping." Her mouth presses into a line. It's a far cry from what she used to do, but Baedal is a far cry from where she used to live. "I don't remember if you told me what you did, actually."

"The system here is a little screwed. I hear it's better if you've got money, which..." He gestures, indicating both of them but meaning their cohort in general. "Obviously none of us do." And people who need that kind of tutoring definitely won't. Upward mobility in Baedal is about as much a myth as the American dream.

His eye contact leaves a lot to be desired; he tends to look in someone's general direction but not quite meet their gaze, usually focusing on the nose or mouth instead. He huffs out a laugh. "Clean toilets, mostly." That's a nice answer that doesn't use any alarming phrases like court-ordered community service or frankly bizarre ones like model. His life is really weird right now. "I sort of drift."

A see-saw shrug, because of course it's better if you have money, and otherwise nodding, listening, and then a pull at the corner of her mouth in sympathy that Wolfgang's drifty existence might not be as settled as she'd imagined. It does explain, she thinks, why Wolfgang has the look about him that he's tired a lot.

"What about before?" she asks, instead, head tipping to sweep lank brunette locks out of her eyes. "In Tel Aviv."

"Um --"

He hesitates, not sure how to answer. He doesn't want to outright lie, although it's tempting to reinvent his history that way, here where most people will never know the difference. But it's a lie he can get caught in too easily because he never thought to get his story straight to begin with, and he doesn't want to be a liar, not to people whose opinion matters to him.

"Um, we have -- had -- a draft, so..." He looks a little uncomfortable, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "After that, more of the same. Crap jobs for crap pay."

Her eyes hood a little, automatic sympathy that runs a little deeper than 'oh, you're sometimes a janitor?', mostly due to an inherit lack of trust in anything to do with organised military. It lacks the context of Israel or, indeed, any Earth that goes without ludicrous and unnuanced oppression against superhumans, but is no less sincere for it. Still, she also comes from a background where obtaining an amazing career was never the mark of a fulfilled existence--

"Well, if you need any help with where to drift next, I've made friends a little with-- some people. The Employment Office people. I don't mind gaming the system."

Wolfgang smiles, discomfort mostly gone since she breezed right past a topic he clearly doesn't want to talk about. "I wouldn't want to ruin your reputation with my unreliable self."

How many jobs has he gone through in the six-plus months he's been here? Whatever the number is is embarrassingly high. He can't even really justify it as not being his fault because most of the time, it kind of is.

"Thankfully there's never a shortage."

The entire world is engaged in a superpowered war, with portions of the eastern seaboard already considered a loss, and yet a person can still make their way into a hole-in-the-wall convenience store in a run-down neighbourhood and buy a stack of dirty magazines. A robotic spider crawls a brick wall and sweeps its cybernetic gaze over the woman making her way home with her purchases in a brown paper sack. They aren't for her. N...ot that she ever made any attempt to convince anyone that they aren't.

And if she thought about it much, she might feel a little odd about the fact that if she squinted, and - she supposes - covered one eye, the blonde woman in the centrefold could be her. A younger version of her, anyway. Her partner likes to remind her every so often that she isn't as young as she once was. But the curves of her body were similar once, and she still wears those spiked heels. Okay, so she has thought about it some, but she chooses not to think anything of it beyond that. That would require exercising more forethought and care than she's willing to spare these days. Evading the scrutiny of the government she works for is a second full-time job in and of itself.

Odessa has to turn her head to spare a glance for the mechanical arachnid. Though she hasn't quite gotten over her fear of what they represent to her, and to everyone like her, she's long since made her peace with the fact that Big Brother isn't going to be turning a blind eye (ha) any time soon. She lights up a cigarette that she has a prescription for, thanks to aforementioned partner, and carries on.

If they come for her, it won't be in the streets anyway.

Edited (I can do hyphens and grammar and syntax good.) 2012-05-12 10:17 (UTC)

It's a beautiful city, really.

This part of it.

And it's still being built around them. Odessa has to cross the street at one point where the pavement is blocked off by scaffolding and plastic sheets and men in orange vests and hard hats. A truck backs out of a side street, the traffic faltering, before continuing again. It's been years and it's always been like this, between little bursts of civil unrest, the slowdown of funding due to war, and, you know. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Everyone blends in with everyone else, not because of a similar dress, economic status, race, or what have you, but because they tend to walk and move and interact in the allotted spaces; cares are on the road, people moving in contained chaos on the sidewalk, people wing through the doorways of vehicles and buildings alike.

So Benji is a little eye catching. She sits on metal scaffolding, a heavy black skirt of far too much fanciness hanging heavy for the pavement just below, he legs folded primly, hands only lightly keeping herself balanced. A fitted jacket hugs her narrow frame, glimmering with beadwork on the cuffs and collar, and although she is almost entirely a shape of simple black and white, she still seems a little more stark and real in the sea of New Yorkers going about their day.

Also, she is watching Odessa, unashamedly.

You don't live as long as Odessa has with as many enemies as she's made without having learned to recognise when she's being watched. Some day it's a prickling of the skin - the hairs on the back of one's neck standing on end. Odessa wouldn't describe it that way, but she hasn't got any better explanation for it, either. Other than the fact that she tends to feel it more in her stomach than anything else. A gut feeling may be appropriately applied here.

Of course, Odessa knows she's always being watched, but this is different. She stops. People behind her have to dodge around her, and she really couldn't care less about their annoyance. She looks around, and it isn't as though she knows where to focus on immediately, but it's as if she can't be bothered to take note of any of the faces in the crowd around her. (Well, it's a dream.) Benji's presence isn't so much jarring as it is-- No, it is jarring, but it isn't frightening.

Disconcerting, Odessa decides is the right word for it. There's something familiar about her, and at once nothing at all. It means she's worth it, the effort it takes to fight back through the crowd the way she came. So-casually, Odessa makes her way toward the scaffolding, and the (seemingly) delicate form perched there, agitatedly taking a drag from her smoke.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

if one day is good, is a day sufficient?

badside ; shrieky ; closed.

badside ; shrieky ; closed.

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aspic bazaar?

:D!

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» In Dreams

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