vatheon | [open] This town, honey, is a dead town

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[open] This town, honey, is a dead town

Who: Sol, ~~Queen, and~~ open
When: Evening of the 9th
Where: Somewhere with food and booze in the bubble and an "outdoor" area.
Style: Adaptable
Status: Open! ~~Even if Sol is made of alternating lineface and jackass.~~

Sol hunches forward, the movement profoundly lazy even as he scrawls something out in a notebook, glancing between it and the starfish communicator he has sitting in front of him, next to a short glass of half-melted ice and gin and an ash tray. His surroundings go largely ignored as the usual milling about and wandering for this time of day: people coming and going for their meals or walks or whatever their preferences, and Sol's more absorbed in the music he has going in his headphones anyway. Right leg just above the ankle crossed over his left knee, he's into it enough for his foot to bob in time with it. Little sways here and there with how he moves and adjusts while writing, someone comfortable in what they're working on. Or at least relaxed. It's a bizarre thing, since research and data collection isn't something he's really done in... well, years. But between perusing the network for posts concerning the way Vatheon operates, for things he missed while comatose, and as far back as he can go, the rest of the world's shut off, too, and that contributes a lot.

Sadly, he's also made himself the perfect target for interruption.

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Interruption, you say? Well, today is your lucky day, Sol! Selphie also happens to be hanging around the very same place. Outside, she carefully holds a cocktail class in one hand, and a bowl of assorted nuts and rice crackers in the other. Between one reason and another, she's decided to treat herself to such things this evening. Glancing this way and that, she wonders where to sit, or if she recognises anyone...

And that's when she spots Sol. Hands full, she can't wave across to him, so she just slowly winds her way between table to get to him. Closer she gets, Selphie realises that he's busy, and listening to his music. It would be rude to disturb him, but she sits down directly opposite him anyway. Taking a sip of her drink, she slides the bowl of nuts towards him.

What catches his attention first is the shift of pressure, then blocked light, and then vibrations as she claims her seat and pushes the bowl across the table. Glancing up, he debates the need for annoyance (old habits die hard, and he'd never been good about being interrupted); there's effectively a peace offering there, at least, so he decides against it. Instead, he glances up at her again, to what he's doing and checking back over the pages he's filled, and... actually shifts the headphones down to hang around his neck while he works.

Occasionally, he can be decent.

"Takin' a break from beatin' up trees?"

...Or not. Yes, he'll keep teasing her about that.

Edited 2013-06-10 18:38 (UTC)

When Sol looks up, Selphie offers him a large, friendly smile. Okay, so their meetings and conversations thus far had been at bit weird, but she's decided that she likes him, so that's that.

"Yup. Just a small hiatus, ya know? So that I can gather up my strength for the next time I wanna beat up trees."

Taking a sip from her drink, she even gives a quick wink - she couldn't let his teasing win, after all.

"So..whatcha doing, professor?"

Her answer prompts the smirk on his face to broaden for a second, chuckle low in his throat and barely audible. Really, reminds him way too much. It's why he doesn't just up and shove off. That and even Sol doesn't mind people, sometimes, so long as they keep out of what he wants them out of.

Which is why he answers her question, much as the title throws him for a second.

"Y'don't want me teachin'." Still, he's amused. There's a beat there where he considers turning the notebook her way instead of just explaining it, but it lasts only until he realizes that his handwriting is almost certainly illegible to anyone but him. "Tryin' t'see what everyone knows 'bout how this place works. Got me when the barrier cracked, so missed that opportunity."

Selphie lifts up from her seat slightly to lean over and get a better look at the notebook. But as soon as she glances at it, she realises that he is right in thinking that that handwriting would take way too long to decipher, so she sits back down, and picks some peanuts from the bowl.

"Hmm... Lemme guess - you're gonna figure it all out and work out how to get everybody home? Or, at least, yourself?"

She smiles softly as she tilts her head slightly at him - she's seen people work on this sort of thing many times, and that was usually their goal.

"Not th'only one who wants out, 'm sure." Sol takes his drink in hand and sits with it against his bottom lip for a moment, scanning over what he's written during the pause before taking a swallow. "Got a little experience with pockets, but was all a bunch o'coincidences and a witch." There's obvious distaste with that last word.

Not quite studying Selphie's expression because he's still a bit distant, mind still on the data he's gathered so far, he watches her for a moment.

"Anythin' happen here 'at stands out t'ya more'n others?"

"Nope. I guess most people do." Selphie took another sip of her drink then, wondering how badly, on the scale of things, she wanted to go home now. But it's not something she wanted to dwell on for too long. Still, she was apparently much amused to see the man thinking so deeply.

Her smile did wane when he asked that question, and she shifted slightly in her chair, glancing down at her cocktail glass. "Depends on what you're looking for... I'd say...apart from the time I went home and came back, the weirdest thing was...when I died."

If she thought it was amusing to see Sol looking contemplative like this, she really needed to meet Potemkin. Now there was a surprising sight: big as a house and a philosopher. Sol kept to himself, though, not much for social interaction due to deeming it worthless more often than not (and people being too soft to handle his manner, too picky about what people should be like, should do). Didn't much matter, though.

Sol spared her a glance longer before turning his attention back to the notebook, eventually turning it to cross something out, scrawl something up along the edge in a way he'd be able to understand later even if no one else could. He would have told her just as far as Vatheon's concerned, but he waited. Glad he did, too.

"R'member anythin' from goin' home 'n' back? Not bein' there, but th'process." He'd... get to death, after. He'd died here once, as well, but didn't even remember it happening. Vatheon liked to pick terrible times for him to go comatose.

Edited 2013-06-17 22:38 (UTC)

Selphie bit her lip, glancing down at the bowl of nuts and rooting around with a finger until she found a particular kind that she liked. Popping it in her mouth, she watched as Sol crossed things out and wrote something down. Chewing thoughtfully, she leaned over the table to try and see what he was writing, presumably about her.

"Huh? Well...No. I was just here, and then I was there. Course, it didn't feel like anything was different, not until I landed back here again. Somehow." Selphie shrugged a shoulder, tapping the side of her glass. "Just that when I wound up here, I didn't remember a thing. Not for a while."

It was all written in the kind of shorthand and handwriting formed by too many years of rushing. Funny how some things didn't change. He'd picked that up in university, when there still were universities, when the sciences were still studied and you still had professors who didn't know how to talk at anything below what might as well have been the speed of light. He learned to write about that quickly, too.

A brow ticked upwards, but Sol didn't question too much out loud. There was the obvious: distortion of space(-time) occurring more efficiently than his own experiences, limited though they were and really not enough to test. But distortion such that it incurs temporary memory loss? Curious. Truncated notation of theories ran up and down the page, and Sol finally turned to a clean sheet before continuing.

"S'just a slow recovery of memory'r what?"

Yup, there was definitely not way that Selphie was going to be able to figure out what all of that stuff said. But likely, she'd have to have things explained in detail to her anyway, so it didn't matter too much.

For Selphie, the whole time and space thing was just a part of the universe that she was used to. Playing around with either of those things wasn't usually a good thing, but they could and did happen. Sitting comfortably in her chair, she took a long sip of her drink, nodding her head. "Yeah. I guess so. I needed memories to trigger me. But uh - my memories were messed up before I came here anyway."

Half the reason Frederick had used it. Liked keeping his notes to himself. Sol kept that habit. Normally, he wasn't one to explain anything, though, so it'd be unlikely Selphie'd get anything like that.

He'd been dropped back some nine years in the past and made to fight himself because a witch in red couldn't handle him. Lucky him that the fluidity of time favoured the present over that which'd already happened. That or the will of the human (hah) spirit had more power than people gave it credit for. Weird shit. Violated a lot of theories, that.

"Yeah?" Memories being scrambled wasn't really that strange when you considered what was possibly through squishier sciences, but... It rubbed him wrong, that being the case for Selphie.

"Yeah." But that was all she said about that. For someone usually so chatty, Sol has somehow managed to put Selphie in a place where she's happier just thinking things through to herself. She lowered her eyes and concentrated on slowly finishing her drink.

Sol didn't say a word to that, didn't try and coax anything out of her. Some things just aren't discussed--he understood better than most. Instead, he jotted something else down after reading over a few more old posts.

"S'other'n briefly--lack of a better word--misplaced memories, not much, hn?" Back to the previous topic. Safer. Setting everything down, he leaned back and sank a bit in his seat and ran a hand through his hair. Didn't matter how many people said anything, it just didn't seem like there was enough data to actually work with.

Still staring into her glass, which now is empty apart from its little umbrella, Selphie shuffled uncomfortably on her seat. "Right. And the time that I died here and came back. I guess that was kinda weird." Selphie shrugged a shoulder and looked back up, watching as Sol relaxed in his chair. "Not any further in your investigation, huh? It kinda works out that way." Totally not in an I-Told-You-So way...

"S'definitely weird. 'Specially when y'don't remember it." Man, Ky'd been after him about that... And Sol hadn't had a damned clue it'd happened. "Still don't get how that works." More muttered to himself than really directed anywhere.

He wasn't deaf, though, Selphie. The look her tone merited was something of a drawn out line not without some vague trace of his sense of humour, however faint it might have been.

"S'a start." ~~There might be an unspoken 'Miss Smartypants' in there. Maybe.~~

"Well...that's what's even weirder. I did remember it. I mean, I do. I died, came back, and I knew exactly what had happened, and where." She gave a little shudder, glancing in the direction towards the park where the lake was. Selphie got up from her seat, holding her cocktail glass loosely in her fingers. "Want another drink?" Yeah, she just ignored that tone, because she knew what it was, and what it meant, but if she was chatting about her own death, which she remembered in detail, then she'd need more alcohol.

He followed her line of sight, watched the spot for a second, and disregarded the whole of it. The events were more worth note, but she'd only be talking about them if she volunteered; he wasn't planning on trying to get them out of her if she didn't want to talk about it. Too much effort.

Which is why he glanced up at her and cocked his head faintly towards a shoulder.

"Aint gotta say anythin' y'don't want." She knew that, right? He wasn't interrogating her, wasn't even actually interviewing her.

Whoa, actually she didn't know that. Or she did, but hadn't recognised that that wasn't what was going on for a moment. She blinked at Sol then, and gave a sheepish kind of laughter, "You're right! I'm sorry - it was the note pad thing. It was like... I dunno, it reminded me of back when I was at home, and the academy used to give me disciplinaries for being late."

More than likely, that had to be what had made her offer more information than necessary, yes? A part of her did want to give up something for Sol to contribute to his findings. Not that her situation was unique.

"Anyway, I'm gonna fetch a drink. You sure you don't want one or...are you all done here now?"

Sol nodded his head once, almost in a knowing way and sort of as if to wave off whatever she thought she had to be sheepish about. Not like he'd specified anything, either. But he glanced up at her with the mention of "the academy", curious for a moment before realizing there's really no point in that line of question.

Pft, like he had a line of questions at all. Groping in the dark. Maybe, though... Find a few other minds broad enough to look into this. Can't use the network, though. No trusting that. Still pretty sure it's monitored. Rapid fire, rapid fire--find some place to stop because she's talking again.

"Gin." Simple answer, simple drink, largely simple man. He wasn't going to turn down an opportunity to not have to expend energy to accomplish something.

Edited 2013-07-09 03:31 (UTC)

Selphie just stared at Sol for a moment - he sure seemed like the kind of guy that even if he delivered one word sentences, there was still all sorts of who knew what going on inside his head. She smiled a little at that, and just nodded to show she'd got his order.

When she returned, Selphie carried a glass in each hand, one a champagne flute of fizzy pink stuff with raspberries on top and umbrella. The other, gin for Sol, was in a tall glass with some lime, and two umbrellas - green and yellow. "Here you go!" She placed the drink in front of him, so sure he'll be charmed by the extra decorations she'd asked for.

Lotta thoughts when he wanted to have them, anyway. Rest of the time, just chuck everything out. No use being worn or weighted down by unnecessary things. Unnecessary was also the fact that Selphie up and getting him a drink, but if she wanted? Not gonna stop her.

Sol arched a brow at the umbrellas, amused and not really trying too hard to hide it. Didn't bother taking them out, either.

"Really?" He held up the glass with a faint laugh in his throat, shaking it a bit so her little decorations shifted with the movement.

Selphie couldn't look happier with Sol's reaction - she wasn't quite sure what he would say or do, but this was definitely better than she thought it would go. She smiled to herself, and nodded, "Really, really! It's cute, right?"

Giggling, she lifted her glass and leaned across the table with it, "Cheers!"

Jesus, kid. Well, at least the smile's better'n some of the expressions that've crossed her face in the past ten minutes or so.

"S'long as it tastes th'way it should," he offered in return. "Cute" wasn't exactly his thing, if it wasn't obvious by now, but humouring her was easy enough. He met her partway while she reached across the table, minimal effort. Not like he reached very far, just enough.

"It should! It'll be exactly what you want, just dressed up loads prettier! Everything is better if it's nice to look at, right?"

Selphie is definitely not a shallow person, when it comes to it. But she certainly is attracted to anything that is brightly coloured or cute to look at. She grinned as she sipped at her own drink, smiling at its fruitiness. "Yup! Perfect!"

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[open] This town, honey, is a dead town

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