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"Yeees -- a few times. Since they -- since I broke my bike, it's been easier to get around that way." Baedal is an awfully big city, and Wolfgang keeps finding himself having to travel from one end of it to the other in a day. It's hugely annoying, but what else can he do? He still hasn't fixed that goddamn bike. At this point, it would probably be less trouble to just buy a new one, but he is now stubbornly attached to the thing, since it's his only connection to his home world.

He glances behind them, out the window at the passing Skyrail car as it disappears behind a building. "I guess having two trains makes up for not having any buses. Or cars."

Shrieky nods, taking a few more steps out. A neon turquoise sand crab skitters over one of his feet, and he glances over his shoulder, shooting Jae a loose little smile, "I do like it here. I don't want you to think that I'm unhappy at all, because I'm not."

He's still smiling when he looks back down, shifting up onto his toes, as a particularly high wave creeps up towards his knees, "I know that people don't take the pamphlet seriously, and I assume that it makes sense not to believe it, but what I heard from it, I thought was good. About being lucky to have been brought here. Being chosen. I would like to believe those things."

As the Skyrail car vanishes from sight, Shrieky redirects his attention towards Wolfgang again. He's not entirely certain what any of the things which the other man's just listed are, but he can hazard a vague guess, "Those are vehicles? Or methods of transport where you're from? I had noticed that people here don't seem to ride horses, nor have I seen a single carriage or cart drawn through the streets."

He looks out the window again, but nope, the Skytrain is definitely gone. "I'm sorry that your, uh, your bike was damaged. What happened to it?"

"Yes -- in Syriac Well they have hansom cabs, I think... carriages drawn by horses. Others, too, but you don't see them very often, no. I think it is too hard to stable horses or whatever else in the city." 'Whatever else,' because most of the vehicles he's seen so far have been pulled by miscellaneous alien-looking, four-legged animal things. "I saw one once, it was some kind of... of robot or machine or whatever you call that sort of thing when it's powered by magic, but it really freaked me out. It looked like it was made of metal hands."

And it was the size and shape of an ostrich.

"Oh -- I fell, and it got all... messed up." He makes a vague gesture to accompany that, sounding a bit flustered, which he hopes Shrieky will interpret as him being embarrassed that it was his fault -- he's actually floundering a bit at being put on the spot like that, usually he keeps his lies much closer to the truth. They're much easier to keep track of that way. "They're not hard to come by here, I'm just incompetent." Well, that part is true.

"Metal hands? Like a creature made out of gauntlets?" Shrieky shifts around back into a sitting position beside Wolfgang, "Yes, I can see how that would be quite disturbing. The devil does make work for idle hands, allegedly."

Shrieky looks mildly concerned at the blustering. He doesn't have any reason in particular to doubt what Wolfgang's telling him, but he can see that the other man is mildly distressed by the question, "I'm sorry to hear that, you weren't injured at all, were you?"

"I'm sure there's plenty of people who believe it. Maybe even the people who wrote it."

People are born here, people put a lot of heart and soul into Baedal even before that; someone loved it enough, over five hundred years ago, to name it after a sacred Korean city. He can't ignore that.

"To some of us, though, we've been kidnapped from our homes and lives. I don't hate it here. But there's a lot I miss."

And the looming reality of being trapped doesn't help.

"I understand that." In the very first conversation he'd had here with Narcissa, she'd made it clear that she felt great grief about being removed from her home. There's still a small part of him that finds it ironic to hear about how upsetting humans find having been kidnapped, but he's getting better at hiding that part of him. This is why, when he turns to face Jae directly, he looks genuinely sympathetic.

"Was it very different where you came from? What kind of things do you miss?"

Well, it's certainly not only humans that are ticked off at being kidnapped.

"The city I lived in is bigger than this. The technology is more advanced. I could travel to other cities and countries, and I did. I miss my co-workers, my career, my neighbor and her cat. I miss my family."

That last bit is quieter. It's not like he was speaking to him - he'd let them believe he'd died, years ago - but somehow now that the option to ever contact them again has been removed, the choice torn away even if he'd never take it, is just so much worse.

There's an unkind little urge in Shrieky's stomach, which hovers somewhere between jealousy, vindictiveness and guilt. Jae just named a lot of things that sounded extremely nice and that it was very normal and understandable for him to miss. It just so happened that there was literally no reason why Jae should have been allowed to have those things in the first place!

...Unless you counted the fact that he was clearly an extremely good person who was entitled to be happy, and that was where the guilt came in.

"I'm sorry." Thankfully, the feeling that carries through to Shrieky's voice is regret, "That sounds like... a great deal of things to lose, in exchange for something which I'm sure is less valuable."

"I don't know yet."

The edges of the waves only touch his feet briefly before they recede; he doesn't feel like going out much further, though he does crouch down to get a closer look at the colorful little crabs darting into the sand as the water brings them up.

"Maybe I'm here for a reason. I don't want to squander that. But it's been hard so far."

"People have been being brought here for centuries," Shrieky points out, "If you're here for a reason, it might not become an obvious one until a hundred years from now."

On the surface, that doesn't sound like the most inspiring of insights, so he decides to expand upon it, "...What I mean is, I don't think you should worry about squandering anything. Even if you are here for a reason, it's not as if you were consulted before being brought here, or as if you owe any kind of fealty to destiny, or any other force that sees fit to estrange you from your life and family."

He sloshes back through the water, out onto the shore, and begins the process of shedding his sweat pants and t-shirt. He might not be planning on going out deep into the water, but he kind of wants to sit down in the shallows.

"I think," he continues, muffled briefly by the fabric of his t-shirt, "That you should just do what you want, and do what seems like a good idea at the time, and try to be happy. And if you can't be happy, then don't be." Now freed from the garments, he looks back to Jae, "You don't owe that to anyone either."

"Yes, and they were shaped like --" He holds up his hands in the same position -- it looks vaguely like some kind of animal head with a beak and two 'ears'. Imagining it twice the size makes it scarier. "So, this... uncanny valley effect. I'd really like to know what it was made of as long as I don't have to get near it."

He shakes his head, then brushes his hair back out of his face. "Oh, no, I'm fine, thank you."

Shrieky brings his hand up to cradle his jaw contemplatively. That does look a little strange, but it's hard for him to imagine it not just being this person's distinctively un-frightening hands. "Was there someone... I don't know, controlling it in some way? Or was it just roaming the streets?"

Shrieky acknowledges Wolfgang's wellness with a little quirk of his mouth, but doesn't press further, it's probably not good to try and push people into talking about recent accidents, even if you are curious.

Edited 2012-02-11 19:18 (UTC)

You're going to get pneumonia, he thinks, in Shrieky's direction, but doesn't say it. He knows it'd be derailing; even something as simple as 'just wait and see and don't stress out over it' would require acknowledging his issues. Even to set them aside, it seems like too daunting of a task.

It should say something that a guy who can't walk down stairs is right about something of this magnitude. It should say (scream, yell, blast from a boombox into his face) that Jae is DOING IT WRONG. But that's the problem with suppressed trauma. It doesn't adhere to logic.

"You're probably right." He's totally right. Maybe Jae will actually call that Hellsing guy tonight.

(Nope.)

Shrieky paces a few feet out, deep enough into the water that it laps at his knees, then he drops down into a crouch so that it rises up to his chin. This feels nice, being submerged again.

"I think I am. Perhaps it becomes easier to live here if you don't put so much pressure on yourself?"

He wades his arms through the water slightly, maintaining his balance.

"Some pressure is okay. It can be motivating."

Otherwise, what if he got complacent or apathetic, and had to stay in the Spatters, or the Inn? Eff that. Jae would rather be stressed out and employed. He wouldn't have his apartment without being overly paranoid, either.

A little crab is floundering around near his foot, so Jae pushes some sand on it. There.

"There's something for everyone here, at least."

"Can it? I never really noticed."

Living in a moat has never left Shrieky with too many options for upward mobility, so pressure has never seemed like a particularly useful tool in his arsenal of things to feel.

"Maybe if you just separated the things which you can do something about, from the things that you can't do anything about, and only pressured yourself in a practical way, that would be better?"

He leans forward, letting the water splash up over his lips and shoulders, before lifting his face up again, "So what is it you do here? Do you have employment?"

"Well, that's what everybody tries to do, really." But some pressures come from outside forces, and... Jae's already getting a headache. He refused to go back to an academic lifestyle for a reason.

"I do. I work in a couple of clubs, and at a radio station. I have an apartment. I worked hard so that I could be out on my own as soon as possible." ... Immediately, really; Jae spent a couple of days without a roof over his head, but he hadn't slept for the first few days he was in Baedal, so. "Do you like it at the Inn?"

Forgoing further pleasantries, which are evidently of an uncomfortable nature with Mermaidman, as he has helplessly labeled Shrieky, Tyrion looks at the dragon in question.

"'A Greater Mimicker'," he reads, proceeding at what he feels is a reasonable rate. "'A wyrm of limited color-changing properties, which makes its home in tropical rain forest...'"

Some time passes like this before Tyrion realizes there are still errands to be done.

"If you'd like, we can continue another time." Mermaidman, he adds silently.

Shrieky is really quite engrossed in learning about the dragon types, and slowly picking out the words as Tyrion reads them aloud. He glances up at Tyrion's offer, and after a moment's hesitation, gives a ponderous nod.

"I would like that. When should we meet again?"

He taps his fingertips lightly on the edge of the table, waiting for Tyrion's answer. The soothing power of having something read to him was already put Tyrion quite high up Shrieky's list of favorite people in Baedal.

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well I'm telling everyone you said that from now on

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