multiversallogs | (no subject)

Jae laughs a bit at that, soft, because it's a nice thought, even if he can't help but wonder at the state of ... well, astrophysics, and beyond. He's sure he could understand if he studied enough, but the idea grates on him.

The train isn't crowded, as they're traveling in between typical shift-change hours, and it's a nice little trip - Jae points out a few things as they pass (carefully not tripping out as they skim over the part of town that makes his head feel like it's full of static), even his own neighborhood.

It's still chilly when they get off the train near the coast, but not quite so dreary - it's clear, and even grey-toned, the ocean is lovely.

Shrieky spends most of the journey staring out the window, looking for the sights which Jae's pointing out to him, as well as just enjoying the ride. Eventually, his eyes begin to feel a little uncomfortable, so he began looking at things inside of the train instead.

By the time they step off the train, his mood has shifted across from polite attentiveness into stomach churning anticipation, and he's notably silent as they walk out towards the ocean. Shrieky isn't certain what he'd expected it to be like. He'd seen drawings of course, but somehow even in his most ambitious fantasies, he'd never been able to envision it being quite so vast.

"My goodness..." The words are mumbled, slightly breathless. He glances to Jae and clears his throat, "Can we go down to it?"

"Of course." Jae'd made sure they arrived at the southwest part, anyway, so he could go down to the shore - the water up by the harbor is still clean, but full of boats and persons generally irritable about having to fish out swimmers from their dangerous shipping lanes.

Chimer, however, is soft-sanded and mild, with an expansive boardwalk that is in places shined and polished and weather-beaten and antiqued in others. For someone who won't take off his shirt unless his life depends on it (or he's getting laid imminently), Jae's been to the beach kind of a lot - but he likes the atmosphere. He's always liked living near water.

Shrieky's descent down the steps onto the shore is somewhat inelegant. While on a flat surface he's more or less adept at using his feet, when it comes to descending stairs, he's still a little overly concerned about miscalculating a step and breaking his neck. Because of this, he moves down the steps in a crouch, low enough that he can balance with his hands if he needs to, and that he doesn't have too far to fall if he loses his footing.

Upon reaching the bottom, he glances up after Jae, to make sure the other man hasn't lagged behind. Because truly, crawling is the fastest way to get down steps.

-Oh good lord.

Jae doesn't actually make a startled noise, but he almost does, and when Shrieky looks back, Jae is watching him with owlish eyes, looking nervous and, privately, slightly terrified the other guy is going to end up going headfirst in a roll down the sandy steps.

For his own part, Jae is totally fine, navigating the steps with ease.

"You okay?" He's plunking down the last two, bag in hand.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine." Shrieky straightens up and dusts himself down, before looking at the recently conquered steps a little ruefully, "I'm still... I haven't descended many flights of stairs before. People have this way of making it look easy, but it just doesn't seem safe to me."

He scootches his feet out of the slip on sandles he's wearing, and bends down to pick them up with one hand. The sand this far up the beach is dry and loose, and he shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet, sinking his toes into the beach a little curiously.

"That's a great mental image," Wolfgang says, dryly, pulling a bit of a face -- but he sees what he means, yes. "What's the point, though, do you think? 'Don't have kids, they might get kidnapped by celestial beings'?" He knows perfectly well that's not the intended message of a story like that, but he is curious about Shrieky's thoughts on it, and why it particularly stands out in his memory.

Shrieky shakes his head very slightly, glancing up to look at the sun hanging over Baedal, "I think it means that nothing you can do will ever stop the sun. Even if it isn't right or fair, the sun does whatever it wants, and you can't do anything about it."

He looks back down again, blinking, to try and shake the smears of light from his vision.

"Maybe also, that you shouldn't try to stop the sun, even if you want too."

"Mm -- any choice he could have made would be a bad one, or it wasn't really his... If he shot the sun, everyone else would probably die -- and if he took his kids back, it was only because the sun allowed it. I don't think I like stories like that -- about being helpless. Topical, though, considering..." He gestures around them, indicating Baedal.

He steps onto the train when it pulls up and sits, since it's quite a few stops from Mog Hill to Howl Barrow. "We're on the Dexter line," he comments idly, indicating the El Train map on the wall. Then: "The green one, they're all colour-coded. It's four stops, then we transfer to the blue line and go three more stops to Lich Setting. They tell you which stop is coming up before you get there." He's not sure, but from reading over the Network, he's sort of gotten the impression Shrieky might not be able to read, and counting stops and seeing colours might be easier for him.

"I think if I was the man, I would have taken the shot." Shrieky replied, thoughtfully, "I know it would be bad for the world not to have a sun, but I feel like maybe the sun is turning against the world when it starts killing or stealing children. Maybe the sun had it coming."

Telling Shrieky about colours and numbers is actually a pretty way to get him interested in the process of navigating the El Train, and he studies the poster closely, counting back through the stops from where the blue and green lines meet. He finds Mog Hill, two words which is is capable of picking out (although he probably would have skipped the second L if he'd been asked how to spell it out himself) and the corner of his mouth tugs up into a grin, "This is kind of exciting, isn't it? Traversing the city like this?"

He glances to Wolfgang for confirmation, smile pulling up into a full on grin, "We could go to any of these places, if we wanted."

"You'll get used to it," he says, because... well, what else can he say? Does Shrieky turn into a mermaid in the water like Ilde does?

Jae leaves his sandals on for now, taking care not to tread on too much loose sand; despite being dressed in things outfitted for it, he still doesn't want to end up covered in it. Nature is fine to look at, it's very lovely, but it needs to stay the hell out of his pores, thank you.

"When the sun starts actively working against your interests, it makes sense to do something about it," he says, carefully. "Even if it hurts you in the end as well." This is getting dangerously close to something he thinks he maybe shouldn't be saying somewhere as public as the trains, which he knows are monitored -- but it is just a story, isn't it?

Shrieky's enthusiasm is charming, and he smiles briefly, grateful to change the subject. "It is a nice system; in Izmir, where I lived before, the trains were never on time. And so slow -- have you been on the Skyrail yet?"

Important note: the Skyrail is fucking terrifying. It's useful, though, in that it has different stops from the El, and Wolfgang is not actually particularly bothered by heights. ... Well, of course not, he's like a million feet tall. (Ba dum tsh.)

Shrieky nods, shifting his weight from foot to foot in the loose sand, "I'm sort of counting on it, actually. Someone mentioned to me recently that my current method for descending stairs isn't entirely dignified..."

He takes a few experimental steps down the beach and towards the sea. He's still getting used to the feeling of sand shifting under his feet, between his toes.

"Do you come here a lot?"

Shrieky nods, but mercifully lets the discussion about murdering the sun drop there. It's a touch too depressing, and risks marring his new found fascination with public transport.

Instead, he abandons the map, and moves to sit beside Wolfgang with an expression of intense interest on his face, "The Skyrail? I've never heard of it. Is it like this, but going through the air?"

Because that's exactly what it sounds like. It's probably not a good idea for Shrieky to go on the Skyrail, at the moment he's still petty concerned about the long fall which could result in ineptly descending staircases, but... on the other hand, he is fascinated by the idea of it.

"The boardwalk pretty regularly," he says. "There's a couple of bars I like." Ladies and gentleman, Jae's priorities. "But I'm not really a beachy person otherwise."

He's not even sure if he knows how to swim, anymore. Maybe. Probably. He thinks it's probably like riding a bike, but he doesn't want to find out.

"Have you ever been in a body of water with a really strong current?" Shielding his eyes against the glare off the ocean, Jae peers down the beach, looking to see if the life guard shack looks occupied. And it is, fortunately - there are apparently enough species in Baedal who don't mind the cold water that it's still considered viable wading weather.

"No. The River here had the strongest currents I've ever been in." Shrieky... hadn't entirely thought through the problem of the ocean having tides and currents and water which moved in directions, but as they approached the water, and the roll and swell of the tide became increasingly obvious, he was quickly amending his expectations about how far out he could safely go.

"I don't think I'll go in far. I mean, I don't want to just leave you, after you came all this way with me, and I'm not really a very strong swimmer anymore."

Although his expression doesn't really change, Tyrion misses a beat before he manages to respond.

"Oh, I see." Really, is that any weirder than having, say, a three-headed dragon for a family crest? Actually it is, in his opinion, but he's trying to adjust his worldview now that he's in Baedal. "I'm Tyrion. How about you pick whatever entry you'd like to read, and we'll... work through it?"

Shrieky decides that he's glad he didn't ask about Tyrion's diminutive stature. That might have bred the kind of rapport between them which would require some kind of dialogue to open up between them about his being a Mermaid. As it is, instead, he just mutters a polite little: "I'm pleased to meet you, Tyrion", and jabs his finger towards a particularly iridescent dragon illustration.

"How about this one?" He steals a sidelong glance towards the short man sitting next to him.

"Have you talked to anyone about finding out how you got turned into a human?" Jae walks beside him, angling them down the beach a bit nearer to the lifeguard. Jae doesn't mind sitting on the sand and observing - the atmosphere is pleasant - but he's not qualified to go in and drag Shrieky out if anything happens. Might as well play it safe.

Once they're in a spot that Jae has deemed optimal, he sets his bag down and pulls one brightly colored beach towel out, unfurls it, lays it down, and then sets the bag on top of it, all very neat. Only then does he take his flip-flops off. He'll tolerate going down to the water's edge and getting his feet wet, but that's about it.

Edited (sometimes i actually notice typos, it's nice) 2012-02-10 02:23 (UTC)

"I've not been turned into a human." Shrieky replied, but without any real ire in his tone, "I was made to grow legs, and my gills stopped working, but neither of those qualities are human exclusive." He's aware that it's not really an answer to Jae's question, but that one's... a little complicated, if he's perfectly honest.

He takes a few steps out into the water, and waits for it to roll in over his feet and ankles letting the still sensitive skin acclimatize to the temperature before dashing in deeper. It's cold. Colder than the river had been. Colder than the moat had ever felt.

"I've not talked to anyone about it." He confessed, edging forward a little further, "This probably sounds strange, but... did you ever miss something, but at the same time, really desperately not want it back?"

If Jae was someone else, he might talk about human privilege, here, but he isn't so he won't; he doesn't want to not look human, either.

He thinks for a little while before answering. As he does, he rolls up his white yoga pants to his knees, careful. "Yes," he admits, and then stands back up. "It's always very bittersweet."

Shrieky leans down to roll up his own trouser legs, mimicking Jae's movement. "That's how I feel about it. It's like... if you spent your life, not being able to see, so your hearing became incredibly strong, and well attuned? Then one day, you woke up, and suddenly you could see everything, but your special hearing was gone. I miss it greatly, but I would never give up what I got in exchange."

Fabric protected from the water, Shrieky takes a few more steps, letting the water rise up to his calves.

"Yes, it's -- there, you can see it," he says, pointing out the window -- off in the distance, up high (very high) in the air, one of the Skyrail cars is heading in the opposite direction. "It's almost all glass, even the floor, so you can look down while it's up in the air. I guess some people are awfully scared of it. If there's an accident, well... you're kind of stuck. It's pretty, though. Even with the fog."

"I understand." And he does; Jae's had enough experiences in small degrees (and one large one) to equate it. Still, he thinks it's awfully unfair that this man has had his entire species toyed with. You'd think there'd be someone in Baedal who could figure out a button to turn it on and off. (He thinks again of the number he got from Hellsing he's supposed to call, somewhat guilty.)

Jae digs his toes into wet sand, and watches as... neon turquoise sand crabs? ... dig into the sand as well. ... Okay. Vaguely alarmed, he moves one foot.

Anyway.

"There could be worse places to experience life above water. You get stuff from a million worlds."

Shrieky twists in his seat to stare out the window, his face close enough to the glass for a faint mist to spread across it with his breath. "It's... Oh. My goodness."

He wasn't sure what else there was to say about it. The car was far enough away that it looked like a toy, high enough in the air that he couldn't even fathom the possibility of full grown humans being inside it. Resting his arm along the back of the chair, he dropped his head down slightly, to rest his cheek on the back of his forearm as he stared out at it. "I can see why people would... would be hesitant to ride in that."

It looks kind of terrifying. But he also kind of wants to try it...

"Have you been in it?"

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pretty perilous /slams back in here super late

A Tyrion tag is never early and never late, it arrives precisely when it intends to!

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