there is a community of the spirit.

[caballero]

Who: Bruce Wayne Tom 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.

Comments

[caballero]

At that aborted movement, and the way she looks at him, Bruce starts to feel vaguely guilty for bugging her about it when he knew she wasn't the same woman to begin with. It makes him rethink some of the petty feelings he's harbored against alternate dimensions. (Not... a lot, but at least it's a halfway on the table for consideration. Hm.)

"As far as I can figure, reality's best creativity goes into details you'd rather it left alone."

Which sounds more bleak than he intends - nothing ever sounds as bad in his head as it does out loud. It's all about setting and context. Unfortunately.

To make up for it- "Tom." He extends a hand.

[pushfall.livejournal.com]

It does sound somewhat bleak, but she's someone who can appreciate the sentiment, so after allowing a tight-lipped nod she breaks the seam of her lips to smile and snort, softly. "That's gotta be some kind of Murphy's Law. Oh, there are a bunch of other worlds and things out there, but we're going to fill them with everything that might make your life awkward."

As this is accompanied with some gesticulations that try to add a certain blend of humor, Claire is aware of how ridiculous she's coming off to a perfect stranger. It's on the fence whether or not she hopes the other her was more collected and less of a dork. The only added benefit is that her arms are uncrossed, making it easy to accept his extended hand.

Her grip in return is firmer than might be expected for someone of her stature, but it's pleasant and she nods to cover up the small smile that wants to break through at the name Tom. "Nice to meet you, Tom. I'm Cl- well, I guess you apparently know that one already." Taking her hand back, she shifts her bag from one palm to the other and goes on: "I hope my face wasn't attached to some kind of crazy person or something."

[caballero]

His own grip is firm, but not careful; maybe he feels like he doesn't want to squish anyone's hand, seeing as he's not the tiniest guy around. (Sure, whatever.) He's got callouses, and there's some white medical tape around his index and middle finger near the knuckles. It's not totally weird, just not indicative of someone who spends all his time inside.

"I didn't know her well, to be honest." He knew she was pretty durable though, but he doesn't actually put much thought into that aspect of her, now - the odds of it are pretty good, but it doesn't really matter. "It's just been one of those days. Nice to meet you, too."

[pushfall.livejournal.com]

Claire refrains from asking questions. She knows from experience - well, other people's experiences - that it doesn't always go well or end up being in the be interest when you start investigating futures or pasts or alternate timelines. Hiro, at least, proved that theory without even trying. Or maybe by trying too hard. Peter, too.

Instead, she focuses on the white medical tape splashed across his knuckles. It isn't that odd but she's programmed to notice that kind of thing about people, even when she understands that half of the time they would rather it just be dismissed. Letting go of his hand - so much bigger than hers in comparison - she steps back a little and asks, "Is that what happened there?" Claire indicates the tape. "Just one of those days?"

[caballero]

He smiles a little, flexes his hand, glancing down at it while he does. It's from punching someone much bigger than him on his first day here - no real reason; just wandering too close to too many sketchy areas, and he looked like an easy mark. (For what, he has no idea. Coupons?)

"I got my hand caught under a pile of cinder blocks I was moving in the apartment I'm trying to make livable," he tells her, and the mechanics of that mental image match the injuries on his hand perfectly.

[pushfall.livejournal.com]

She might be better learned on bone placement and the structure of skin and the way things should look as opposed to how they do, but Claire has never paid more attention than it takes to reset something into place and be on her way. Someone was supposed to show her, once, how to properly place and feel out the bones in her legs - with her inability to feel pain, walking around with improperly set limbs wouldn't exactly be ideal - but she's never learned, and looking at Tom's hand, she has no reason not to believe him. Punching someone much bigger than him is what she would expect to be the lie. In her experience, guys don't typically settle for less than hyperbole if they're trying to sound more macho than they are.

Claire winces in response, wrinkling her nose and taking a half step back toward the direction of the library. She has no idea if he'll walk along with her, even if for a short while, but she says, regardless, "Fortunately the apartment I got was pretty livable on its own. Cute, too, surprisingly. How long have you been here, again?"

[caballero]

For a moment, it seems like he might not, as if he's not sure if that's what she's trying to get him to do, or if he'll seem weird if he does anyway. But then - yes, he walks after her.

"Long enough to be out of the Valhalla." Another lie, but an easy one; maybe he just wants to save money, maybe he likes fixing things, maybe he hasn't gotten a job yet, maybe he was really screwed up when he first arrived. Bruce could easily still be staying at the Inn, freeloading... but then he'd probably have to mingle around all those people, and. No. Not happening.

[pushfall.livejournal.com]

She clicks her tongue, approving, and shrugs a little bit before reaching into her bag to pick at the flaky pastry. Although she's not hungry, it's still nice to have something to do with her hands while she tries hard not to concentrate on the contours of his face, the way he carries himself, the fact that he knows someone with her name and face and what that might mean. Is he an ally or an enemy, to put it in the most black and white terms possible? Right now there's no way of knowing, no way of sussing it out even if it makes her feel naked to know that more than one person might be privy to things she can't be prepared for.

So she pops the little corner of crumbling sugar and icing into her mouth and says around a treat that tastes like strawberries, "It's weird, most people adapt really quickly here. A lot of people have jobs and places to live within a couple days of showing up here. Back home, it always takes longer than that to get acclimated. Even the last place that I was had a settling in period." Claire pauses to swallow and then, after thinking about it, offers the open end of the bag to him, inviting him to snatch a piece if he wants. "The Valhalla isn't so bad."

[caballero]

Jeez, everyone is feeding him today. Does it look that pathetic? ... Anyway yes, he does take a piece.

"This environment is what people who support socialism aim for," he says mildly. "There's no import consumer culture. Everyone has to be useful, and the buffer is magic instead of inflation, so newcomers are able to benefit from the surplus and what amounts to intangible social welfare floats a lot of people."

... Of course.

[pushfall.livejournal.com]

He has a certain air about him that demands handout. Or, no, maybe she just feels bad for him and his hand. Either way, that's all the pastry she's offering, and Claire seals up the bag and lets it swing from the curled grip of her fingers.

She gets what he's said - her hair really never has been that blonde - but Claire still gives him a look as if what he's said has managed to go several inches above her head. Understanding it or not, that kind of a sweeping statement isn't something she's expecting from someone she only just met.

Then again, she did give him part of her pastry. Who does that?

"You sound like you know something about it," she says, pausing to move her hair back from her face. "Are you some kind of teacher or just really interested in social welfare?"

[caballero]

"I'm an engineer." Verbal shrug goes here. As noted elsewhere, to say something that broad is a little bit like saying you're either a moron who doesn't work (the science version of I'm in consulting!) or someone too smart for their own good. But the implication is that he works on community planning, so at least there's that.

"I don't expect anywhere to be flawless, in its design. This is interesting, though, if you separate it from the fact that we're prisoners."

Which he hasn't done, if the slightly wry edge to his voice in that remark is any indication.