multiversallogs | (no subject)

He's used to being stared at but it still makes him rather self-conscious, especially when he's not sure if it's a good or bad kind of staring -- he's not the best at reading people and there's something a little off about Shrieky that he can't quite put his finger on.

His smile is anxious like the rest of him, as if he is very concerned about what this complete stranger thinks of him. (That is exactly it, actually.) "It is nice to meet you, too -- I mean, in person, anyway." He holds a hand out for him to shake, his right hand, hoping to breeze right past any awkwardness.

Shrieky is familiar with the concept of handshakes, although he has participated in relatively few of them himself. He's acutely aware of the tension which he's managed to instill into this first meeting, and he tries to ignore it, as he extends his hand to take Wolfgang's hand in his. He holds it for a moment, as if he's not certain what he's meant to be doing, before quickly withdrawing it.

"I don't mean to offend you by saying this, because it is not a bad thing at all, and it is certainly not your fault..." He speaks suddenly, and quickly, because maybe if he just gets all of his words out right now then the remainder of this meeting will become less awkward, "...But, you are very beautiful, and I realize that having seen you on the CiD, I should have been prepared for that, and not surprised by it, but I think I didn't anticipate that you would look quite like this in person."

It's a little intimidating, if he's completely honest. Wolfgang evades definition.

He ducks his head and purses his lips as if he's trying to school his expression into something more serious and failing miserably. He is determined not to be one of those obnoxious people who can't ever take a compliment, but neither is he capable of playing it cool. Because Wolfgang is not cool. By anyone's definition. (Nerd.) "No, it's fine, I'm not offended --" He feels vaguely as if he ought to apologise, but... that's just him, Wolfgang consistently feels as if he ought to apologise for existing and taking up other people's air. "Thank you, though?"

Before either of them reaches critical awkward mass, he nods his head in the direction of the nearest train station. "Are you ready to go?"

"I'm ready." Shrieky gives a slight nod, and sets off, at Wolfgang's side. It's good that he's not managed to offend Wolfgang (although really, Shrieky supposes that being told you're startlingly beautiful is actually a pretty poor insult, as far as insults go.) and now that the initial shock of the other man's appearance has worn off, he feels calmer again.

"I remembered a story. After we spoke, I mean. About a man who tried to murder the sun." He glances at Wolfgang, waiting for confirmation that he should tell his story.

Wolfgang keeps pace with Shrieky, because otherwise he's got those mile-long legs and tends to go too fast -- and it's not like they're in a rush, they've got all afternoon. He sticks his hands in his pockets and inclines his head. At least he can recognise a cue when it's right in front of him. "I don't think I've heard that one; how does it go?"

The considerateness is appreciated, especially since Shrieky is still pretty unsteady, even on his relatively short legs. He's not... as slow as he started out, but he's not going to be recognized for his power walking skills any time soon.

"Well, there was this man, and he and his wife dearly wanted children. So they performed the necessary sequence of steps, and late one night, she gave birth to a baby boy. At first, the boy was healthy, but when the sun came up, he suddenly grew weak, and by the time the sun was high in the sky, the little boy was dead."

He glances to Wolfgang, checking that he's paying attention, before continuing:

"A few years later, the man and the woman tried again for a child, and this time they had a little daughter, but again, when the sun rose? She died. They tried this one more time, a few years later, but once again, the moment the sun was in the sky, their child began to fade from them. So the man decided that he was going to stop the sun from taking any more of his children. He packed his bow and his arrows, and he set off east in the dead of night, so that when the sun first rose the next day, he would be right there waiting to shoot the sun down!"

Edited (wall o' text needed some line breaks :c) 2012-02-06 18:27 (UTC)

The phrase 'necessary sequence of steps' makes him smile. "I take it that didn't go very well for him."

"Not particularly well, no, but considering he was trying to kill the actual sun, that's probably for the best." Shrieky answered, almost as an aside, before continuing, "So, as predicted, with the first rays of light began to enliven the sky, over the horizon came the sun! He rode on a chariot, and all around him was a host of men and women who glowed like they were made of gold. When the man saw them, he felt ashamed of what he had meant to do, so he dropped his bow and tried to hide, but the higher the sun rose, the more impossible it became for the man to find a place where it couldn't reach it. Finally, the sun found him, and it said:"

He pauses, to clear his throat and put on his best 'sun' voice, "Why is it you came here, man? With your bow and arrow?" His voice slips back into it's normal pitch now that the Sun's important line has been spoken, "And the man told the sun about how it had killed his children, and how angry he had been. So the sun gestured back towards the golden people who'd risen across the horizon with him, and told the man that they were his children, and would he like them back? But when the man looked at them, he could tell that really, they weren't his children anymore. So he let the sun rise on with them, and returned to his wife, and they had no more children for the sun to steal."

He sends a sidelong glance towards Wolfgang, "And that's how it ends."

Edited (icon repetition) 2012-02-07 16:27 (UTC)

His head tilts slightly to one side as he takes all this in. "Well, that was rather rude of the sun," he says as they come up to the metro station. The trains are quick -- there ought to be one coming by shortly. "Although I guess being willing to give them back is nicer than they usually are, but stealing children is kind of messed up. And also disturbingly common in stories like this. Where is that from?"

"I think the sun knew that the man could never actually take his children back. It's like if you were about to eat something, and I took it from you and rubbed my tongue on it, then offered it back. No matter how much you wanted it originally, it would still be somewhat spoiled." Shrieky would never do that, of course. Once you had licked something, trying to give it away was rude.

Peering down the train lines, he answers the question, a little absent mindedly, "Not from my home. I had a friend, before I came here, who left me for a year, to marry a woman on another continent. That was one of the stories they told him while he was there."

"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."

"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, 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.

"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."

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?"

"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."

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?"

"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)