vatheon | [Backdated like Whoa]

Who: Pascal and Hubert Ozwell
When: April 4th
Where: Coral Garden Restaurant
Style: TDB
Status: Closed

The Coral Garden restaurant specialized in pastas, cheeses, and (as always, this being Vatheon) plenty of seafood mixed in with both in various combinations. With a villa theme that reminded Pascal of some of Windor's coastal regions, it was a pretty nice place to enjoy a dinner.

Which really wasn't a lot of surprise to Pascal - she'd figured Hubert would go out of his way to find the best place he could.

What did surprise her, though, is she'd actually managed to find a nice, knee-length black dress - and that her hands cleaned up reasonably nicely even though it'd been a week or so since she'd taken her gloves off last.

She'd actually kept an eye on the time as she rushed to get everything together, and arrived a couple of minutes early to the restaurant, a smile on her face as she waited for Hubert to arrive.

She still wasn't sure if this was a date or not, but darned if she wasn't going to make sure it was a good time one way or another regardless.

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He would have been lying if he said he wasn't nervous. Sure, he'd been on other dates before. That wasn't the issue. It was that he had finally mustered up the courage to ask her, and for the rest of the week his mind was running over every worst case scenario that would end with her storming out on him.

Not that Pascal was the kind of person prone to that level of dramatics, but of course he wasn't being even remotely logical in those thoughts.

But he arrived shortly after she did, properly groomed in a nice, new pale yellow button down shirt, black tie and black slacks.

He approached from behind, and while her hair was just as vibrant as ever, he still had a moment of 'is that really her?' upon seeing the black dress on her.

Wow.

"... Pascal?"

"Hey Hu!", Pascal said with a smile. Surprisingly, while her tone was obviously excited, she was actually a little quieter than usual.

Someone must have given her some pointers about volume in fancy restaurants or something. At some point.

Clearly. But it was a pleasant thing to see, that was for sure.

"You... you look lovely, Pascal..."

"W-well... Thanks."

Pascal blushed a bit. She really, really wasn't used to thinking of herself as particularly pretty, so dressing up like this and getting complimented for it, especially when it was the often easily frustrated Hubert, caught her a bit off guard.

It didn't hurt that she'd actually showered and washed her hair for the occasion.

That does help, yes. A lot, actually.

"You're very welcome."

An actual smile, however small, accompanied his words, and he held out an arm for her to take.

"Shall we then?"

"Let's," Pascal said, taking Hubert's arm and carefully matching his pace, neither pulling nor being pulled by him.

Hubert led her inside, speaking to the local hostess who had taken his name earlier in the week. They were led to a table near a window looking out in to the plaza.

"It's mostly pasta dishes and the like. I hope that's alright."

"Actually, that sounds pretty good," Pascal observed, as she took her seat across from Hubert. "Might have to figure out the cheeses they use here though. The soft ones always hit my stomach like a ton of bricks."

"Ah... well..."

Things he didn't want to know. Thanks, Pascal.

"You could always ask."

"But some places think that's rude. It's kind of a chef secret sometimes. And I can't just abandon every cheese-based pasta for that risk, you know?"

"... as usual your logic is infallible."

Just don't pay attention to him groaning quietly to himself. Really, Pascal?

"You get it!"

Of course Pascal would have that kind of logic.

"But yeah. Pasta's great."

Smiling, she looked around. "Pretty neat-looking place. Reminds me kinda of Windor, a little."

"A little, yes. That's... in part why I chose it. A little memory of one of my homes."

Hubert's cheeks color a bit at that, and he pushes up his glasses while turning his head to "admire the decor".

"That sounds silly, doesn't it? An odd thing to be sentimental over."

"Not at all, really. I mean, Windor was important to you, right? Even if you've become a big name in Strahta, you grew up in Windor, and that matters, right?"

"Well... yes, I suppose that's true. I honestly never considered it in that regard."

"You see where I'm coming from, though. I mean, the Amarcian Enclave's a lot like that for me. I don't end up there too often, since I do a lot of my work on the road, but it's still home, you know?"

"Yes, of course."

The waiter arrived at that point, giving them a chance to speak their orders, but once he was gone Hubert swung back around to part of their previous topic.

"You never did explain all that much why it is you spend so much time away from home. Was it simply for exploring and research or was there more to it than that?

Pascal, in a surprising moment of thoughtfulness, ordered a butter pasta instead of cheese... But also ordered two bottles of wine.

"Well... Kinda both, kinda just one. Mostly it was to study the old Amarcian ruins - even with all we found, there's still a lot hidden within them. All sorts of lost technological advances that we'd otherwise have to go to Fodra to get at. I still want to find out more about the Artificial Humanoids..."

She blinked. "The other half of it was just staying out of Fourier's way; the less she had to worry about me, the more both of us could get things done, you know?"

He could understand that. She had a natural curiosity, after all. But the last part earned a slightly raised eyebrow.

"Do you really think your sister doesn't worry about you when you aren't there?"

"... I know that's not the case, but to a fair extent, out of sight, out of mind, yanno? When I'm away, she can't do anything, so she doesn't have to worry about me as much."

"I think you underestimate the power of sibling emotions, Pascal. Asbel and I had our differences, sure, and there was a time when I thought I hated him but the truth went much deeper than that.

I'm sure even when you're gone she worries."

"... Maybe, but it still isn't something I often have time to worry about, you know? I can't slow my own life down so that she slows her life down for my sake. There's too much to discover!"

"No, I'm not disregarding that. I understand your desire to explore. But... well, maybe something to consider some day would be working together with her, instead of separately."

"There's a thing with that, though. I'm a mechanics and thermodynamics expert - biology is more her field. And while I'm sure there's ways to put them together, they'd probably be kiiiinda disturbing. Like some of the monsters from Starfish Rangers, you know?"

"Yes, but the key difference there is that you and Fourier are not mad scientists hell-bent on either destroying the world, enslaving it, or both."

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