caballero ∞ until one day it did (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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multiversallogs2011-11-08 09:22 pm
caballero) wrote in multiversallogs2011-11-08 09:22 pm
Entry tags:
there is a community of the spirit.
Who:Bruce WayneTom and you.
What: Creeping out from the fringes and the shadows, investigating the city through a closer lens.
Where: Various areas in Baedal, mostly the central districts, and along the river.
When: Coardi (Wednesday), or any day this week after that, I'm easy.
Notes: OPEN LIKE AN OPEN THING. I want your cr and I want your revenge, tag in under whatever scenario your dark heart desires.
→ new note: if you'd like to start a new thread please come up with a new setting on another day, Coardi has hit critical mass of things Mr Hermit BatCrab would put up with before vanishing back into the shadows. :E
Warnings: TBA. (Swearing? Not much else.)
Bruce doesn't want to admit it at first, but after he gets a decent night's sleep and has a real conversation with someone, he feels a lot better. It took him an hour of silent reflection on Hasi's little balcony to come to terms with having felt awful to begin with - it's not being here, it's everything else, being here is a strange misstep but it isn't enough to throw him, not really - and to accept that attempting to remain a ghost in the machine wasn't an acceptable plan of action. For a whole armful of reasons. Also on that balcony, struck by the view at night, with oddly-powered lights set into strange buildings like scattered candles and gems, Baedal reminded him of Baku, maybe Lahore, and the inoffensive memories chided at him from quiet corners about his aseptic behavior.
He still isn't social when he goes out. He's quiet, unassuming, and spends hours wandering, watching without truly interacting. He keeps to the edges of the river, then, walking alongside it off the roads, going under bridges where he can. There are people washing the dye out of great, bright reams of fabric in the still shallows, speaking a language he guesses must have once been of Earth; he practices with them for a time, talking of the river's current and temperament and the goddess that lives within instead of about the tenure of their citizenship.
He walks up into the city proper when he comes to the water's split, skirting the arena - there are men and women practicing familiar-but-not-quite movements in a great lined rectangle. It's an experience on a scale Bruce never had even during his own time as a student, and so he sits and watches for a while. A woman speaks to him about a guild that trains and dispatches warriors to serve as private guardians; he keeps the paper she gives him, but invests in nothing further. It isn't anything he'd truly consider, but he's curious in an academic way about what lies inside their doors.
There's a library he'd like to see, but a group of children with wildly varying ages (and genetic markers) end up kicking multicolored rocks into the cobblestone street - he kicks one back, artfully, and ends up engrossed for the next hour learning a game with rules he suspects are not actually written down anywhere. With few words, he teaches one of them how to hold his arm to balance anything on his hand, and laughs a little, privately.
He still isn't social when he goes out. He's quiet, unassuming, and spends hours wandering, watching without truly interacting. He keeps to the edges of the river, then, walking alongside it off the roads, going under bridges where he can. There are people washing the dye out of great, bright reams of fabric in the still shallows, speaking a language he guesses must have once been of Earth; he practices with them for a time, talking of the river's current and temperament and the goddess that lives within instead of about the tenure of their citizenship.
He walks up into the city proper when he comes to the water's split, skirting the arena - there are men and women practicing familiar-but-not-quite movements in a great lined rectangle. It's an experience on a scale Bruce never had even during his own time as a student, and so he sits and watches for a while. A woman speaks to him about a guild that trains and dispatches warriors to serve as private guardians; he keeps the paper she gives him, but invests in nothing further. It isn't anything he'd truly consider, but he's curious in an academic way about what lies inside their doors.
There's a library he'd like to see, but a group of children with wildly varying ages (and genetic markers) end up kicking multicolored rocks into the cobblestone street - he kicks one back, artfully, and ends up engrossed for the next hour learning a game with rules he suspects are not actually written down anywhere. With few words, he teaches one of them how to hold his arm to balance anything on his hand, and laughs a little, privately.
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The other half is the fact that he has to do a bit of a fancy move to get out of the way and kick back the colored rock by the time Thrice wheels by - luckily he makes this all look easy, and so accidents are avoided and children are impressed at the same time.
Then he catches a look at the man coming by and it's -
- nothing, because that look is all it takes to know, no, that isn't anyone he's met before, even if there was a sick heart-stopping moment of wonder. Bruce isn't sure what that was, really. Panic? Anticipation? ... It doesn't matter.
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...but not too much longer. After he'd finished doing a few more laps of the cantons that border the river and returned to the messenger depot for a shower, Thrice went off in search of a good cafe to sit, get a bit of food, and digest what he'd learned about his new city.
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That evening, walking into a cafe whose sign is crafted brilliantly in a scrawling language he's never seen before, Bruce catches a glimpse of who's already sitting inside, and thinks about card games.
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The cafe is busy enough that should Bruce choose to ignore him and sit elsewhere it wouldn't be unusual.
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By the time he ends up back in the dining room, he's feeling more curious than edgy, and decides it's fine if he sits down by this guy.
Hello.
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Most people immediately classify him as 'mostly harmless' or 'gently batty in a too-smart sort of way'. Both of these categories aren't entirely incorrect, but they're not very good at capturing Thrice at his best.
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"Tom. I'm not really either." Which is true enough. He settles back into the chair - or both, or whatever - and sips his coffee, habitually looking out at the room. It doesn't appear calculating or paranoid, just like he's still taking things in.
"How's your map going?"
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"It's not bad to have something with immediacy, either way."
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"That's decent of him, considering." Considering the utter lunacy of that connection? Yes, apparently so.
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Just outside the cafe, a horse-like creature whinnies and refuses to move its load any further. Thrice frowns, looking past Bruce and into the street, letting his eyes lose focus before he fusses with something in his pocket that seems to bring him back to the conversation at hand.
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"It's sure different," he murmurs after a while.
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It wasn't the easiest bargain to drive and it means he'll be slogging through a nearly endless mess of magical-technical coding to improve the network, but it's all worth it.
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