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Who: Gaheris Rhade and Open
What: Rhade takes a break from city searching
Where: Outside of one of Gediron's temples.
When: A couple of days after his arrival
Warnings & Notes: Some almost violence. He's still at sort of an angsty place in his lift too, so it might come up in thread. Note to mods: if anything is off, I will be glad to change it.

He was scouting the area of the city near the inn where he'd been recieved. The intention that day had been to go to the unemployment office (it was bizarre that, after so many years as a commissioned officer and one expecting his life to end, that he'd find himself in this position). Unfortunately, outside of one of the temples (belonging to the god of war, he thought?) there was a heated game of chess going on with an intent onlooker.

Rhade never shied away from strategy games. He'd played them to conclusion almost daily for over four years, and the last year of which against an artificial intelligence. Successfully side-tracked, he waited his turn to sit at the table against the reigning winner. He could always continue with his mission once he'd won a game and perhaps he could acquire information. So he asked for a turn, and took the place of the losing participant who joined in observing.

The only thing he learned was that he should be dedicating his victories to Gediron. Very well, there would be no expense to him in doing so. And he did. And the next one after the insistance for a rematch. And the next one. By that third, his oponent (a rather sturdy bodied, red-headed and ruddy faced human with a fair share of scars), who had been entirely too underestimating, stood up and his hand went back as if to reach for a holstered weapon.

Before he could even wrap his fingers around it, Rhade's own arm was up, boneblades out and near the increasingly nervous man's throat. He would have been much more cocky, confident about his swift reaction, if the man's friends that had been watching didn't suddenly look keen on joining in on a fight.

He was new to the area. He couldn't imagine anything good coming from this when he killed someone. And he knew he would kill someone if they came after him. The idea of interrogation and the need for self-preservation was enough to stay his hand. Lowering his arm, switched to raising his hands in a vague gesture of surrender and backed away from the table, away from the temple, even if his expression remained daring.

It would be a miracle if he could stay out of trouble past the first two weeks. He despised backing off, but he would take it as his cue to tend to priorities.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Restraint is a valuable trait, Ilde has found, albeit slightly at odds with the attitude she's developed out of her own world ('stab things that make you mad'; not foolproof, admittedly). The opportunity to observe someone else's restraint in action comes about entirely by chance - the temple she's most inclined to frequent is Shada's in Brock Marsh (where she lingers outside and almost invariably moves on before making her mind up about whether or not to go in) and she's not often in Mog Hill, but Queequeg's even does good decaf and it was a good spot to settle in while reading through Professor Quirin's first response.

(Wordy. She can work with wordy; she'd referred back to his paper a few times as she tailored her questions.)

Curious and straightforward about it, her interception as he moves away from the temple is neat and without the slightest bit of hesitation or regard for the fact that she's just nosy enough to approach someone she barely knows on the justification of 'I feel like it'. Tucking her CiD into her purse and pushing it toward the back of her hip as she moves, boots tapping stone, "Gaheris Rhade?"

Edited 2011-11-06 08:30 (UTC)

When she drew closer, his expression eased, the hate sinking out of it so he looked a little less like he wanted to break the man's jaw with the sheer force of a hostile gaze. He lowered his hands, primly adjusted his uniform, and looked to Ilde with a vaguely pleasant and formal smile.

That meant his anger was still stewing under the surface, but he could wear a smile well enough when he had to.

"Yes? I believe I spoke to you when I had newly arrived. Ilde." Being that he was not yet out of their sight, even though he turned toward her, he didn't turn his back on them.

Her own expression is impassive for the most part, examining his opponent (opponents-) briefly and obligingly making sure she isn't making it any harder than it needs to be to avoid having his back to them. It's easier for her as long as she has a clear view of his face, anyway; she should really stop trying to have conversations on the street, walking alongside someone in the generally accepted fashion is a bloody inconvenience.

"Right." She tucks her hands in her pockets (she's armed, under her coat, but it's easier to hide the tell-tale shape of it with an illusion and that is her particular talent), small and serious under her red beret. (It has feathers on, she thinks it's lovely.) After a moment, "The Arena at Griss Twist cuts out the middle man."

All the punching and glory to Gediron, none of the inconvenient friends-of-this-guy and trouble with the Sheriff.

He does think it's a nice piece of headwear. She's well decorated today.

"I'll take that under advisement. Though that wasn't the game I'd been pursuing in this particular case. It's a rather juvenile and uncreative way to regain a victory. His losses will still stand."

He tucked his hands behind his back, his boneblades laying flat against his forearms as his posture eased. "I was about to go in search of the unemployment office." He couldn't quite adjust, or allow himself to be comfortable with the idea of leaving off of charity, even for a little while. Inevitably, "charity" translated to "owing" someone something. Dylan's idealism had never quite sunk into his Nietzschean brain.

When modesty is not a concept one is fundamentally capable of understanding and yet one is still obligated to make these concessions to everybody else's ability to grasp that one silly notion, clothing-as-decoration becomes a much more interesting game, if only to maintain interest in going along with the whole thing.

"I don't know what they're like there," she says, thoughtfully. "I never went- I fell into my first job." And then finessed her way into the next one- the prize money for surviving the fog the first time had given her a bit of leeway, too, while she searched for something to do with herself. (An unfinished boarding school education doesn't make for a lot of qualifications; she'd tried to be a little inventive.) "What sort of work are you looking for?"

He hmed under his breath, pulling out his map to verify what direction he needed to go in.

"Finding things in the fog? You mentioned it." He hadn't made it as far as the fog yet. He could already imagine how it smelled, if there were things in it. Moist, stagnant air always had a taint to it that he disapproved of. At the same time the men back there reminded him of the conflict he was missing.

"What was the name of the person that is in charge of the fog hunters?"

"Sonja Garin," she supplies, not feeling the need to clarify that Sonja runs her expeditions but is not actually an authority with the foghunters' guild. Ilde is too used to Sonja being in command, generally, to think of a clarification like that by herself. "She leads expeditions out there fairly regularly. I don't know if the employment office has much to do with that, though; you could contact the guild or Sonja directly."

She's sort of talkative once she gets going, for having such a flat affect otherwise. (Opposites; Sonja is more expressive, but much less chatty.)

Independent work (at least, of a sort) ought to be his focus anyway. Despite the uniform, his days of "Commander Rhade" are long since over. He gestures for her to continue.

"In any case, it seems my time is freed for the moment, if you would like an ear and some company wherever it is that you're headed." And it might do him good to walk along with someone that knows where they're going, so he doesn't get roped into a meaningless competition with lazy fools that could only use bullying to defend their incompetence.

Really, Rhade had a sparkling attitude toward his fellow sentient beings, even if he was willing to defend them. Most of the time.

"I would," she decides, simple as that; she can get quite far just on nosy curiosity, even if she tends to present it less aggressively than is generally thought of. In another context, the uniform he wears might make her uncomfortable- but it's too unlike anything she's familiar with, and there's something reassuring about his stoic straightforwardness.

It doesn't require a lot of her to respond to, and she's prone to dialling back her efforts to present a more socially-acceptable young lady doing young lady things impression when the people around her don't seem to need it.

She touches her purse, absently, explaining, "There's a place in Brock Marsh that will copy parts of a text for me while I wait." Relatively cheaply, too, which is nice. They're used to students, and she appreciates the resources even if that isn't exactly what she is. "I can show you some of the city on the way?"

Mostly she knows the parts closest to the river best.

"You're a student?" Not that it's really unsurprising. Just a question of idle curiosity. Though usually students didn't also engage in dangerous occupations unless that happened to be what they were studying at the time.

As for being an acceptable young lady, no amount of displeasure with the future of his kind could ebb the ingrained fact that women were strong and confident and knew precisely what they wanted, and a mundane life should never be for them. Knowledge burned right down into his genes.

They could wear all the feathers in their berets that they wanted and he fine with following along.

"I teach music, actually," she says, and it's true; that's her primary source of income. The numerous acts of dubious legality she's been engaged in concerning Candlelighters firstly and the necessity to be ready as anti-xenian sentiment stirs more and more in certain pockets of Baedal- well, that's not really second meeting conversation.

(Professor Quirin seems to be a very nice man, and at some point she might consider feeling slightly bad about misleading him. Probably not, though.)

"But I'm hoping that I can find a doctor in Baedal who'll be able to adapt to work with my physiology, so I need to copy some of my uncle's observations on our kind." She's very matter of fact; forthcoming, even, but selectively so. People don't look too closely at what she isn't telling them, she finds, if they have enough to wonder at with the things she does say. Social sleight of hand is something she learned very young, even if her finesse suffers for the five years spent in captivity.

Deprecatingly, with a shrug, "I get into scrapes. It seems sensible."

...yes. 'Scrapes'.

"The doctor with the expertise in xenobiology?" He'd seen her advertise on the network. "She's not from my universe I don't believe. But I know other experts in xenobiology. They're usually quite adaptable to unusual anatomy.

For a moment his nostrils flare. He's not quite ready to press her for the differences but he's not above testing the air to see if there's much different from a human scent.

"It's good practice. I'm not too proud to go to a physician. Repairing a weakness is much more intelligent than facing what seems to be a dangerous city with a concealed one."

As convincing as her appearance can be - mostly to humans who are used to explaining away the oddness about it, the way her illusion almost seems to be colouring outside reality's lines - she isn't human and doubtless a scent reflects as much. She's a river faerie, Wagner's predatory and playful rhinemaiden, and while her bloodline is proof that the species are compatible enough to procreate...well. They aren't the same, and there's little human at all left in her after the storm of her world.

(She's wearing perfume, as well, a Jean Patou.)

"I've had a good luck, so far, but- let's not get cocky, right?" Every now and again she makes these genuflections in the direction of pragmatism, as if she can rationalize the rest that way. (Exactly like that, that's exactly what she's doing, and at least in her own head it mostly works. Not discussing her justifications with anyone else helps.) "I think all cities are dangerous, but Baedal pretends not to be less than some."

It does have its share of pretense, that said.

Edited 2011-11-07 11:50 (UTC)

He mostly smells the perfume. An undercurrent of something inhuman, which might be part of the perfume, and the scent is not offensive in general so he doesn't hesitate.

"When you forcibly combine individuals from different societies with different standards, expect some to take subordinate roles and give advantages to others, and mix carnivorous races that feed off sentient beings into the fray then it would be laughable to assume that such a place wouldn't be dangerous. Such a pretense would be useless."

There probably weren't good ways of covering up what was in the fog, either.

"The pretense is always useless," Ilde counters, less argumentative than conversational; picking at words and meaning and people is habit, and when she retreats behind 'I'm only making an observation', it's almost invariably exactly as much as she intended to do. Just observing, and remarking, as long as she doesn't see a good reason not to. "Pretenses aren't meant to be practically useful in a genuine way, or at least that kind aren't. But people tell themselves stories to live by."

They make up rules for the world around them and tell themselves following these (frequently arbitrary) rules makes them good and being good makes them deserving and being deserving- these things can become so powerful because it's so tempting to have that assurance. It isn't always a bad thing, Ilde thinks; people can't live always on edge.

"Frequently pretense is used to make people feel safe. Comfortable. But if anyone actually believes the rhetoric effectively keeps them safe it would be laughable."

Still, he was willing to dedicate his victories to a god just to see if the god would react. It would be hard to say if he would. But being that Rhade is accustomed to living on edge (most of his kind is) the pretense's are just there for him to find loopholes in. At least they keep him creative.

"I hope individuals like that don't make up the sum of the War god's followers. If that's the case I find him unfortunate. They weren't promising specimens."

"People are funny that way." Laughable, funny, whatever; Ilde's sense of humour is a little warped at the best of times and the things other people tell themselves to make it through a day only bother her when they inconvenience her. (She has her own share of less-examined illusions, but most people do and her own don't interest her as much. They wouldn't work so well if she picked them all apart.) "But I doubt it. I've seen some of the fights at the arena."

"Where is the arena? My people regularly compete, and I wouldn't want to fall out of practice." He would hope that he wouldn't be in any skirmishes like he had been in for the past few years in this place. The arena sounded sensible and civilized.

(Sensible and civilized as he defined the concepts.)

"Griss Twist," she supplies, holding her purse strap with one hand and tucking the other into the pocket of her coat. (Black taffeta with a tulle underlay around the hem; she's fond of it. One thing she won't complain about in Baedal is the ability to rebuild her wardrobe, however temporary she expects this to be.) "It's a dirty great stone Roman thing, you can't not see it. You might find Sonja there."

"Sounds impressive. Most of my people are named after warrior figures and conquerors." He sounds proud of that.

"What are the rules there?" Rules, to him, were games within games. You played with them. Bent them. Broke them in secret. You weren't offended when you were caught because they were supposed to be watching for it. If you couldn't do it so you wouldn't be noticed, you were the failure and the other party was superior.

Years of what she often delicately calls 'her line of work'--serving with the Avengers--have helped Wanda become attuned to certain changes in mood in her environment. She pays a little tribute at a few of the temples on occasion, of which Gediron is one, and it's while emerging from said temple she observes the altercation just outside. Even from a distance, she can tell something in the air is shifting.

She's not against interceding if those other men get involved; it annoys her sense of fairness to see a group becoming threatening toward a singular person, even if the man with the curious blades on his arms seems to have the situation well in hand. When she approaches, she addresses the man's friends, her tone a little dryly chiding. Even imperious, although she is not usually given to letting that seep into her mannerisms (it's more often her brother's thing).

"All right, boys?"

It's the appellation on the end that makes her opinion known, if in her own, mild fashion. Their mumbled answer doesn't interest her much, either; she speaks to Rhade, next, quieter and more amiable.

"Did you win their money, or just a bit of their pride?"

"Their pride. I wonder if it had been their money, I wouldn't have been so willing to retreat." He could be brutally honest, but at least he added, "I could use more than one change of clothes."

And the uniform he had on was fussed over a bit as he gathered himself, dismissed that challenging look for something more amicable (she was being helpful and they seemed to respect her), and offered his hand to shake. The boneblades flattened along his forearm, less threatening that way.

"Gaheris Rhade. I thank you for the interception."

Wanda observes the shift in his expression and body language, and then, with a smile, she shakes his hand. She's sympathetic to the new arrival situation--when she turned up she had people she knew already there (Remy, in particular), but it doesn't make starting over with minimal supplies any less limiting.

"With those," indicating the boneblades through a little tilt of her head, "I think the intercession might have done more for them than you. But it's no trouble."

She's seen mutants with semi-similar gifts, and as such is more likely to consider them 'damned useful' than anything startling.

"You must be recently arrived, then?"

That was the reaction he preferred. Nietzscheans were a minority (a minority that became powerful beyond their means). "I am. And it was suggested to me that the local law enforcement might be partial. I would rather not take chances in defending myself."

Though he would defend himself if he had to.

He was careful to not turn his back on the men he'd quarreled with and more or less sidled a little further away. Even if she'd spoken to them, he didn't trust them in the slightest. "Are you a part of the cohort?"

Wanda keeps an eye on them mostly out of habit--she has learned to watch her surroundings without being demonstrably watchful.

"The newest one, yes, I am. My boys and I have been here a few months now...just long enough for me to know where the temples are." They turned up a little while after her, admittedly, but she's come to think of them, along with Remy and now Laura, as something of a unit, and one she's disinclined to let go of without a fight. She doesn't enjoy being kidnapped here, but at least Baedal gave her Billy and Tommy back.

"My name is Wanda Maximoff, by the way."

"Your boys?" He was almost envious. All of his children grew up without him. The idea that they could be returned to him-

No. No he didn't want any of them here. They led excellent lives in his absence. He shouldn't deprive them of it.

"Excellent name. I've been curious about finding an occupation here. I was intending to look today, and then I became sidetracked." He inclined his head back toward the temple, where the men were still lurking and more openly watching.

"Twins," she confirms, and then adds, wryly, but like it's sort of a fascinating experience: "Teenage twin boys."

Tommy being the particular handful of the two, but she doesn't underestimate Billy's ability to get into trouble. That's practically a secondary mutation in the extended Lensher/Maximoff clan.

"And thank you." For the compliment on her ridiculous Bond girl name. "Speaking of sidetracks, perhaps we ought to get out of here before your fan club makes any unwise decisions."

Wanda has decided to monopolize Gaheris's attention for a while, partly because she just does that to people sometimes, and partly because she's also in the boat of trying to find work that suits her in this town. There's surprisingly not a lot out there for former superheroes, she's learned.

He came from a people with names like Tyr Anasazi, Freya Rajput, and Elssbett Mossadim. It was almost a homey name for him.

"I had twelve children. Three wives. Unfortunately... circumstances are what they are. I'm dead. And they led successful lives after my passing." He was a bit detached as he said it. Mostly if he let himself think about it, he would feel alone and the sting of failure all over again. "But family is more important than where you live with it."

His agreement with her is only expressed in the way that he readily moves along the nearest sidewalk.

The detachment doesn't go unnoticed, and though she shoots Rhade a glance that's sympathetic, she doesn't comment on that part aloud. Dying, she knows from experience, is rather a personal experience.

"Twelve! That's wonderful. That reminds me of my home country," she comments, fondly--large families are more the norm. Transia is quite Christianized, these days, and thus polygamy is increasingly less popular among the Romani there, but in Wanda's childhood it was more of an accepted cultural practice. "And I think you're right. I wouldn't necessarily want the rest of my family to come here, either; some of them have done, and I'm happy to see them again, but they belong at home."

Wanda casts a glance up and around at their surroundings. "As far as kidnapping cities I've been to go, this one's a little more dangerous than the rest, too."

This is her third one.

"The rest? I shouldn't really be surprised at this point. Trapped on the event horizon of a black hole for three hundred years. Travelling into the past. Forwards again. A year later into the past, to change my own history. The opportunity to stay in one place and on a linear path is almost novel."

He's glad she's not put off by the idea of his people's mostly polygamous ways. He's hated what they became in that span for so long- resented himself for contributing to it, that it's nice just to talk about the parts of his culture he was always fond of. That somehow were spared pollution over time. "Where are you from?"

Wanda has known people accustomed to time travel (universe-hopping, dimension-skipping people are unusual but not unheard of in her realm), but that still sounds like an awful lot of moving around, and she makes a little sound of understanding. "My country is called Transia. It's a quite remote, mountainous area...cut off from much of the world, but that's how they like it there. In terms of space/time being a little bit bewildering in these places, apparently it doesn't even exist in many other iterations of Earth."

That doesn't bother her. It exists in hers, and that's all that matters. She tucks her hands into her coat pockets while they walk, just aware enough of the weather to think she ought to buy a pair of decent gloves next time she's out.

"Were you a time traveler by profession, or was it purely necessity?"

"Accident." He doesn't really worry about the cold and doesn't seem to notice. He's a hardy animal, though in a few weeks he'd be wanting to bundle. At least by then he might have enough clothing to do so.

"Transia wasn't on Earth to my knowledge. As many seem unfamiliar with the concept of Nietzscheans, though. Which is what I am." He raised his arm, indicating the boneblades, but lowers it quickly because someone nearly walks into him on the sidewalk and he has to angle sideways to avoid them.

"And necessity. There were things that needed done. I used the opportunity to do them. A city that kidnaps you, however, I can see no way that this-" wait. "Have you made it out of one of these places before?"

"All Nietzcheans have those, then." That's something different to a mutation, then, but she's not surprised--with the infinite variety of the multiverse, it was frankly unlikely. "A few mutants have something almost similar--that's what I am, we're called mutants--but nothing quite the same."

The question makes her smile reappear, this time with a rueful tinge.

"I have. Another city, though not as smoothly-run as this one. There was some great mystery surrounding the place and why we were being kept there, and with my abilities..." She shrugs. "It was very difficult to keep me from getting close to what they were trying to conceal. So it was less of an escape and more that I, along with my group, had to be ejected in order to preserve their little pocket dimension."

Her relentless investigation annoyed the powers that be so much that they freaked and kicked her out, basically. That's as much her magic as it is her knack for being really persistent.

"Places like this," she tells Rhade, "are always delicate about their secrets."

Edited 2011-11-07 06:12 (UTC)

"Mutants?" He raises his brows. Especially interested since some had something similar.

"This was a mutation in our kind that was eventually passed down through the generations. The first Nietzscheans didn't have them. We're an advanced subspecies. A genetically engineered offshoot of humanity labelled homo sapiens invictus." Said with muted pride. Thoughts concerning if her own kind shared similar failings danced through his head.

"You were ejected from that one, but retrieved by this one? I don't doubt that they want to maintain secrets. But if the entire population is built from immigration, is that why non-humans could possibly be considered a threat?"

He never got around to seeing the Knights of Genetic Purity back home, but he still had that unsettling vibe that something was very wrong. Admittedly, mostly through suggestion, but it was still lingering on his mind. If she were a mutant (whatever advantages or disadvantages that gave her) he imagined that it was concern for her too.

Morso if her children were much in the same position.

"Oh, I'm afraid it's more complicated than that, for my traveling--I spent an interim period in a second extradimensional city that allowed its residents to go back to their homeworld and come back at their own leisure. Most of us stayed there for personal reasons." Such as technically being responsible for rearranging her universe a couple times.

She's really only waiting for anti-mutant sentimen to kick up here in Baedal. The vampires have had their turn, and Xenians in general do not receive certain privileges. Wanda just hopes this go-round doesn't bring Sentinels with it.

"In this city..." She shakes her head, thoughtful. "I don't know. In my case, my abilities are quite dangerous, but I am disinclined to use them casually; at the previous city, they might have thought I wouldn't try it. Mutants are a bit like Nietzcheans in regards to being a subspecies, an evolutionary leap, but we each have a gene which grants us certain abilities, depending on the person. Telepathy, instant physical regeneration, and so on. Homo sapiens superior. But there's such variety in species in Baedal, I can't imagine they're focused on a purely human population."

Now Wanda is considering it, though.

"We have them as well. We're several times stronger-" and more dense "-than a normal human." He won't mention the bit about dozens of immunities. That may come in handy at some point. "We heal more quickly. Not instantly. But a serious brain injury can take only a few days to recover from. A surgery? A day at most. And some heightened sense. Scent. Auditory." And he could jump high and run fast, to boot.

"I suppose you did save us a bit of trouble. All they needed was an excuse I might have provided it to them back there."

He is a cynic, and naturally inclined to suspect the worst in people. Even if it makes him altogether too glad when he found the good. When they reach the next street corner, he furrows his brow and looks both ways, before retrieving his map. "Anyone should be considered dangerous. Singling out one person for it just makes them more so."

A huff, and a frown. He had misses his chance to cross. "Why you in particular?"

Edited 2011-11-07 07:06 (UTC)

"That's more of an overall change than for mutants, then. We tend to only have one or two changes. And I don't mind saying I'm glad to have saved you the trouble, as if I hadn't, we might not have had this conversation." Which she is finding quite interesting. What he describes reminds her of the Inhumans, somewhat, but mostly mutants only had one or two significant differences. Some, of course, were changed on a physiological level, but only as a result of their ability. The difference between Nietzcheans and 'ordinary' humans struck her as more thorough, and she couldn't help wondering if they had people who hated and feared them for those differences, too.

At the crosswalk, she eyes the lights, and comes to a decision.

"I suppose because my abilities have to do with probability," Wanda says, "and nothing is really impossible, merely very very improbable. It allows me to open a great many doors."

And to provide an example, she turns her head to look at the street light and the attached glowing sign. When she was younger, she had to point at something to get it to change, but since her abilities grew so exponentially, now it was easier to cast a secure spell with merely eye contact.

In vastly less time than is normal--indeed, just about as soon as she looks at it--the sign changes to 'walk'.

"Some less obvious than others," she adds.

Edited 2011-11-07 07:17 (UTC)

He blinks as the light changes color. Somehow though, it's an under-reaction. Not that the ability isn't impressive. It is. It's just that he knows someone else with similar perception (and control) over probability.

Trance Gemini.

He doesn't mention her right off though. The last time he'd seen her, she'd managed to change appearance from a purple, pointy eared and perky girl with a youthful personality to a gold-skinned dominant woman. If she could change into that, she could change into someone else here.

The suspicion ebbed with a sniff. No, she didn't smell like Trance. Something about the mysterious girl had always felt a bit false, but Wanda smelled very much like real woman. He began to cross, making doubly sure that transit was acknowledging the light.

"Those abilities aren't unfamiliar to me," he finally admitted. "Only I have no way to explain the person that possessed them. She was unique." If that word could even encompass all that Trance had been. "She was a friend." Added for reasons he also couldn't explain.

He misses this person, she mentally concludes, first off; the idea of someone having powers like hers (...she hopes not on the reality-altering scale, but other probability manipulators) is not unheard of, and she sort of does wish there were others like her around in Baedal to confer with on the subject.

"They're a useful skill set to have," Wanda says, accompanying Rhade across the street, "and it's one that usually comes with quite a lot of other strangeness."

She doesn't think it's a good idea to cop to all of it, in her case. There's still a certain amount of shame, for her, attached to the large-scale application of her abilities, and she always prefers to present herself as having it all together.

"Your friend sounds like a remarkable person to know."

The altering of reality, she was capable of. But he'd never encountered her doing it.

"I disappointed her." He was still frowning. For a moment, he seemed to debate adding more. But disappointment was bad enough. "I made things right."

Trance could probably find him here. He had no doubt about that. ...But then again, she could have even put him here, he suspected, because she felt pity for his sacrifice. Or it could be like she said. It's just the universe. Whatever the cause, he realized that he was paying more attention to chewing the inside of his lip than the street signs.

"I can imagine that it would come with quite a lot of strangeness. But if this place is half as dangerous as you say, you have to defend yourself however you can. If I'm going to be dragged around the universe to populate someone's world, I refuse to be subjugated for matters I had no choice in. You shouldn't either."

That remark makes her look over, quiet for a second, still, in her fashion, though she doesn't stop walking. When she tips her head forward it's in concession, but, as she says, with a crooked edge to her smile, "Yes. I'm not an easy woman to subjugate."

She tends to lash out.

A lot. Not violently, but after oppression for her ethnicity, species, and abilities...she's got a certain temperament. As a result, she appreciates Rhade's viewpoint.

"I don't usually have to defend myself often anymore. It's been a long time since I've worked the way I used to, where I was in combat more frequently." And nowadays...well, sometimes, if she just wants people to leave her alone, with the right undercurrent and push to it, they usually do. She'd like to believe she doesn't do that consciously, but even Wanda never quite knows, with her powers. "That's a difficulty, here, finding something close to what I had at home, professionally."

She hadn't said soldier. "An operative of some sort?" he asks curiously.

"I'd been led to believe that there were occupations for many skill sets. The unemployment office might prove otherwise. But I do need to find something to do with my time. Perhaps I should have been challenging them for money."

On top of that, he's pretty sure every item of clothing that he's going to have to buy is going to have to be specially tailored, rather than something readily available. And that's irritating in itself.

"That's certainly one good way to keep afloat until you do find something to devote your time to." Wanda sees nothing wrong with that, she and Remy used to hit up corrupt casinos back in Xanadu.

"There does seem to be a lot of variety," she concedes, "It's more that I'm used to sort of a specialized field. I was previously part, at one point a leader, of a group of people who dealt with large-scale threats to the planet and the universe. We were called the Avengers."

'Superhero' is a word she tends to veer away from, these days.

"The only comparable groups I know of are Hellsing and the Militia; I'm uncertain of the former and not terribly enamored of the latter."

Understatement.

Edited 2011-11-08 03:17 (UTC)

"I have heard of such positions." He just nods. "Though not officially sanctioned." More like positions particular people were manipulated into. "And I think taking their money would have resulted in physical conflict. I don't doubt that I would have won, but then they might have cried theft." He comes close to adding, If he managed to live through it.

"The Militia does sound questionable. Hellsing I don't know much about either, not even its purpose."

He stops and looks at the map, and looks at the building he's next to as he's double checking. But thus far he's enjoying his conversation, and he's learning valuable information, so he decides to stand there.

"Hellsing ostensibly is here to manage the supernatural aspect of Baedal, but..." It's not the organization's military bent that bothers her (although she does not personally belong in such a group). "I've seen a lot of groups like theirs before. I have no doubt they have good intentions."

All the same, some things she has heard about their methods remind her of the sayings about good intentions leading directly to hell.

"I'll tell you what," Wanda says, after a thoughtful moment, "I'll keep an eye out for something that might appeal to you, professionally, if you do the same for me."

"But the road to hell is frequently paved with them." Speaking shared thoughts aloud. He knows that himself all too well. "Perhaps it would be wise for me to remain independent for the time being." Mostly he didn't trust himself. Not after the mistakes he made. If this place was as volatile as mentioned, he was already a danger to it by being here. He would change things for the worst.

"I think your terms are agreeable." He decides.

She inclines her head in agreement as he inadvertently reads her mind. "In a place that's as new as this one, to all of us--I'm hardly an expert--it's usually better not to make any long-term ties."

Particularly given the previous discussion of the likelihood this place is housing innumerable secrets, some of them undoubtedly worrying. Wanda reaches up to push her hair away from her face, as is the pastime of every woman with hair as riotously curly as hers.

"That means I'll have to know what you're looking for, though." She's only just met Rhade, but it only takes about five minutes to ascertain he's not destined for the same kind of job a 20-year-old college student might like, as an example. It's a familiar quality for her, and although the world he's from sounds in most ways pretty different to hers, it's good to see.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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4th wall day at my other game always kicks my butt.

/hassles you with everyone i play, sup

Yay hassling!

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ONE DAY I WILL DO IT RIGHT.

musical logins!!

I'm so excited to get it right!

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