multiversallogs | getting too old for this [OPEN]

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getting too old for this [OPEN]

A table in the public room in the Valhalla Inn is currently housing a middle-aged man with an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth. From the look of his clothing (a faded brown shirt, slightly less faded breeches, and fairly solid looking boots), he hasn't taken advantage of the vouchers for a new set of clothes. From the look of his face, he's less than pleased.

The likely reason for that (or the immediate one, at least) is spread out in front of him- a copy of the Bumworth Pamphlet, two maps, and a battered notebook with a few lines scrawled in pencil. The pencil that did the scrawling is being tapped idly against the edge of the table.

Maybe he can be interrupted. Or not.

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He doesn't really see any flaws in that assessment. If Vimes was in a better mood overall, and if she weren't a stranger (thus automatically even more suspicious than the average citizen) that might actually have gotten a laugh. "Sounds accurate."

The pauses put him a little on edge, though he doesn't show it. It's the kind of behavior you usually associate with someone involved with the occult, or someone who has different symptoms of insanity. "The Ankh-Morpork City Watch." His badge was in his pocket. He wasn't going to let that go, not if he had a choice.

"Police," she says, considering; a slightly different beast than military, and something she doesn't have much direct experience with. Still government aligned, and commander is quite high rank there, isn't it? Worrisome. On the other hand, not a militia.

Ilde thinks the mental math when she lacks half the numbers is beginning to do her head in, so she says, "We don't really have proper cities any more, at home. It's funny seeing newspapers again."

'Proper' cities as opposed to cesspools with people in them.

It's the little things that she finds most strange, anyway; the little slices of daily normalcy that she came out of the facility to discover didn't exist any more.

Anymore? That's a troubling bit of phrasing.

"What happened?" It could be relevant. Possible. Or possibly he's going to regret asking.

"The world started ending a half decade ago," she shrugs, brittle where the light catches her at the edges. She blows a small smoke ring, weighing him briefly - is he trustworthy, that's what she wants to know, partly now simply because she's got into her head to be curious and she's always been like a cat that way. "There were storms, and they changed things, and lots of people are just right bastards, so that didn't help."

On this subject, she's matter of fact but almost more jagged just underlying it, like whatever it is she shields away beneath that veneer of bland passivity comes closer to the surface with a topic like this one.

He's not quite sure what he can say to that. Worlds ending is more a matter for the wizards, and from what he understands usually comes in the form of giant tentacle monsters or something like that poking through holes in space and time. His area is more the ending of other things- a life, an argument, hope.

And there's something sharp in her there, or breakable. Either way, dangerous to bystanders. Diplomacy might be called for.

"Do you want to get back?" Well, he was never any good at the traditional forms of diplomacy.

"We-" she's not alone here, then, "-have a war to get back to," she says, picking absently at the nails of one hand. When he speaks, she's focused on him to an almost disconcerting degree (she's watching his mouth, lip-reading), but when he isn't, her attention seems to wander; sharp and breakable, maybe, or sharp where something already broke her. A shrug, as she settles- "Some people take advantage and need to be told no."

With, like, a grenade launcher. For instance.

He raises an eyebrow. "'We'?"

The rest, perhaps, can wait for comment. It's less immediately relevant, in any case.

"Sonja," after a slight pause, almost absently. "I'm here with Sonja. Not here for long..." Ilde is just killing time while the last little details are sorted and the two of them can head out into wider Baedal; they have no interest in remaining long at the inn.

With a shrug, "I'm with her."

It would be very difficult for Sonja to find somewhere Ilde wouldn't follow her. (One day, someone is actually going to ask what on earth the deal is with the two of them.)

"You have someplace else to go?" he asks, looking at her sharply.

Nothing about her terribly clever eyes is either dull or unobservant, but her expression and tone do not discernibly change in response to the shift in his; she tilts her head a little, that's all. "Yes."

"Where?" His intensity stays constant.

After a slight pause, she shakes her head, putting her cigarette out. "I don't trust you," she says, and there is an inflection here - her tone is almost apologetic. "I'm sorry." She's terribly matter of fact; it might not be his fault (she doesn't know yet), but he is a man and he is an authoritarian and he is guilty until proven innocent and she is not telling him where she intends to live.

She's inclined to like him, but that isn't the same thing. She likes a lot of people she wouldn't let follow her home.

That actually gets a dry smile. Not happiness, not even close, but approval. Vimes is a suspicious character, after all.

He takes out a pack of matches, and finally lights that cigar. "Good plan."

Her faint smile mirrors his, and seems almost involuntary - like in an amiable enough mood she'll simply smile back reflexively. There are traces of the girl she used to be in it, socialite-bred and charmingly opaque (you never forget where you came from), but it isn't her world any more (it doesn't exist any more, for her) and it looks like an echo, not a fact.

"It's not my father," she says, absently, studying him as he smokes for a moment. "I was mistaken. You remind me of his friend. He was-" she hesitates, like she's trying to find a word that doesn't condemn said father in comparison, "-taller," she settles on, finally, unsatisfied with her options.

Vimes seems like he might get taller as you get to know him. It's an interesting thought.

That gets another raised eyebrow, more for the pause than for the comparison.

"And sober?" he asks, dryly.

The next pause is different; Vimes can likely discern why promptly. "Functioning," she says, and the other half of that phrase is 'alcoholic'.

You can't win them all.

He takes a drag on his cigar. "Who's Sonja?" It seems like important information, at least as far as Ilde is concerned.

This is, interestingly enough, a question that Ilde has never before had to answer; with the enclave, she's never needed to, and with anyone else...well, they tended to make their minds up for themselves, and not bother with the opinions of lesser species like Ilde. While she brightens, subtly, like Sonja is inherently something good, there's a moment of freeze-frame hesitation as she searches for a definition.

"She's my-" leader? friend? hero? mentor in the art of being a soul-sucking succubitch? that woman who taught her how to kill someone with a Louboutin? roommate? Ilde pauses, fidgeting with her nails for a moment, then says, "Sonja saved me," like a verbal shrug. They're friends. It's complicated.

From what? is the obvious question, but it's almost just as obviously a question that can't have a good answer. He'll tuck that away for later. Hopefully he won't be here long enough for it to become more relevant.

"Sounds like a good person to have around," he comments, neutrally.

"Yes," she says, without any of the hesitations or pauses that have coloured some of the rest of this conversation. "Yes, she is."

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getting too old for this [OPEN]

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