Fear is the brightest of signs | February Catchall; open

[lasergrenades]

Characters: Pepper Potts, Devin Parker, and you!
Date: Throughout February
Location: Around Aifaran
Situation: Pepper and Devin are both exploring the city and getting jobs, albeit in very different fashions. The vampire continues to be snippy.
Warnings/Rating: None yet; will add as needed.


A. [Pepper] Verdant Sentry | Early February | Open

Now that things are settling down, Pepper needs to find a job. She's naturally drawn to law-enforcement, and while the Verdant Sentry has some aspects of it that are definitely militaristic, they still remind her of SHIELD (minus some of the more problematic aspects). For the time being, at least, they're definitely where her skill-set is most applicable. They don't seem immediately convinced by her resume, even when she tells them about the power armor. Still, they're not turning her down for joining, but skipping some training she already has may not be happening.

It's possible that she shouldn't try to help out on every patrol she sees. The eagerness gets tamped down some after the first week of February, and Pepper settles for studying how the Sentry operates as well as hitting the books.

B. [Pepper] Dreaming Bridge/Opara Core | Mid February | Open

So, Pepper is a natural phone user, and the yimo is absolutely awesome. Aifaran doesn't quite have the internet, but things like Xa Xa and the other aspects of the Lae Shunjai are super cool, and she wastes no time in trying them. She even snaps a few shots from the air when she's in her armor, which are suddenly hugely popular.

And then, mysteriously, her Xa Xa account seems to have disappeared, which is a Problem. She spends a little time trying to figure it out before going to ask for help from the Dreaming Bridge staff, who will probably just tell her to contact tech support. It's not a bad idea to know where the Opara Core is, anyway, so even if she doesn't need to attend to the issue in person, she's going to find a map and figure out how to get there.

C. [Pepper] Aifaran Cafe | Early February | Bakura

In Keeliai, Pepper and Bakura had a few favorite locations to get food, like one that made crepes. Now in Aifaran, they don't have any favorites anymore, and testing out places to try new food seems like a great way to learn the city. There's no shortage of cafes, and they got some recommendations from the Dreaming Bridge about where to go. Until they both have jobs, they'll have to be especially considerate about spending, but they could go somewhere casual.

"How's your roommate working out?"

D. [Devin] Central Ioduan Academy | Early February | Open

Devin is glad that the city he's ended up in this time is larger. Not as big as some, and not as large as he might like, but it's big enough that he can blend in more easily. It will make it simpler to disappear when he feels like it, even if departing entirely is ill-advised. He has certain needs that smaller settlements may not be able to support - or would simple refuse to, not that he would blame them. Staying here means he needs to find a job, however, and he's not interested in law enforcement again. Too busy, too structured. He's been in the military before, and he's not in the mood. The only thing he really enjoys is books, so he heads to the most sizable one in the city, at the Ioduan Academy. He doesn't expect to be given a high ranking position; that's not important. The rest of the Academy looks interesting, too, so he spends a little time exploring the campus.

E. [Devin] Aifaran Piers | Throughout February | Open

Devin is brooding. There's really no other word for it. As little time as possible is spent at the Dreaming Bridge, because he'll have to deal with his roommates. When he's not working or wandering the city learning its streets, he's found an old pier by the water that no longer sees commercial use. The wood is weathered and beaten, but still sturdy enough to support pedestrians. Someone set up a bench at one end of it, and Devin can sometimes be found there taking notes in a journal or reading a book. He may or may not be up for conversation.

(OOC: Let me know if you want a specific starter or feel free to write your own!)

Comments

[afoolsgold]

Confronted with Devin's annoyance, the Fool's grave expression is unflappable. He's walked willingly into far worse than a potential quarrel with a friend.

"It's clearly a thing you are capable of doing, I shall grant you that." He gestures away from the lodgings, towards the surrounding grounds. "Come take a walk with me. We needn't speak, if you'd prefer quiet," he adds rather knowingly, "but I don't think solitude would suit either of us at the moment."

[annihilist]

Devin's mouth thins, like he's preparing to argue. The offer of quiet companionship, however, gives him pause for how it reminds him of Sam. He takes a breath, then another, and eventually nods.

"I was heading outside anyway," he says gruffly. When he picks his feet up, it's at a slower pace than before to ensure that he doesn't completely leave the Fool behind him.

The night air is cool but not uncomfortably so, and the noise of the city has faded with most of its occupants abed. He wonders if the ocean would be audible, if he tried to listen for it. "You don't look like the ruckus actually woke you up," Devin remarks, perhaps to derail the focus on his own problems.

[afoolsgold]

As he turns to walk, the Fool falls into step beside him without difficulty. He may have a slight frame, but he is sturdier than his appearance suggests.

Outside, he folds his robe a bit more securely around himself and, privately, chastises himself for not thinking to fetch a scarf or something similar from among his belongings. He has never been partial to the cold, even when forced to endure the bitterest of Buck Duchy's winters. Devin's question doesn't exactly catch him off-guard; he sighs heavily and lets his eyes close a moment, before wearily opening them again.

Quietly, exhaustedly, he admits, "I am, on occasion, prone to nightmares."

[annihilist]

"Mm."

It's a thoughtful sound, while Devin mulls over how to reply. Nightmares are something he's more than a little familiar with, and it only does more to confirm his suspicions about the things the Fool has experienced. The prophet aspect only adds another layer to the possible unpleasantness dreams could muster.

"I don't think my usual methods for dealing with nightmares will suit you," Devin decides. "Though in general terms, I've found repetition helps."

[afoolsgold]

"I don't think my usual methods for dealing with nightmares will suit you. Though in general terms, I've found repetition helps."

The Fool's lips curl in a tired smirk. He gives Devin an arch, askance look. "That does sound ominous," he informs him, but sounds more amused than put off.

Whatever Devin's methods are, the Fool leaves the subject alone for a few more paces. He turns his face towards the cool nighttime breeze, looks out across the rest of Aifaran as it sleeps, listens for the rush of the ocean. Then, his insatiable curiosity as predictable as clockwork, "What are your methods?"

[annihilist]

"Kickboxing, most of the time - hitting a bag of sand the size of a person with hands and feet," Devin clarifies. Sometimes he would go until his knuckles bled. "I can usually tire myself out to the point of not dreaming again. If I need stillness, cleaning my firearms."

He could clean most of them blindfolded now, and there was something steadying in the weight of well-crafted metal and the smell of gun oil and how all the pieces just fit, and had to fit in order to work.

"There's a book, too, for the worst ones," Devin adds quietly, shoulders hunching slightly. He doesn't have it here, but it isn't the first time. He will manage. "I've nearly memorized it, but the process of reading is what matters. That one took time before it helped, though."

Reading could be an option for the Fool, if he finds books soothing or enjoyable.

[afoolsgold]

If the Fool's gentle scoff at the thought of either kickboxing or cleaning firearms are any indication, those would not be his chosen means of dealing with his insomnia. (He doesn't lose his pensive, almost wistful smile, however; in so many ways, Devin and Fitz navigate the whirlwind of their feelings in parallel. The Fool declines making this observation aloud.)

He marks well Devin's body language when he brings up a book--a very specific book, if his response to even speaking of it is any indication. The Fool turns his head some to consider him in profile. "This must be quite a book, for you to reserve it for your worst nightmares," he remarks softly, and watches his friend carefully for his reply.

[annihilist]

Devin can feel the Fool watching him, but he keeps his eyes facing forward. Nightmares are a natural consequence of the life he leads; he's long-since accepted that. Sharing what calms the worst of them, the ones that chase him into waking, is an intensely personal thing. The silence stretches out while he debates how to answer, or if to answer at all.

Some part of him physically aches at the thought of revealing the closely-held secret, but another part recognizes that it's only a secret because he hasn't had anyone to tell, nor anyone yet ask. The prophet is likely to find it an interesting piece, if nothing else.

"'Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past'," Devin begins, volume low and voice steady. "'If all time is eternally present, all time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction remaining a perpetual possibility only in a world of speculation.'" The Englishman pauses, takes a breath, shrugs like it isn't important. "T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. He meditates on man's relationship with time, the universe, and the divine. It's poetry."

[afoolsgold]

"It's poetry."

"It's beautiful."

They've neared the end of the grounds with their wandering, which is about as far as the Fool is willing to venture in what is essentially his night gown, but it's more contemplation of the words that has him grow still, slowing his pace until he stops. There's a little furl in his brow, and one slender hand rises to touch his chin as he mulls over the words. Devin is correct, of course; the subject matter would be of interest to a person calling himself a prophet.

Then he lifts a finger, steps lightly in front of Devin, and shakes his head. "But time isn't unredeemable. Perhaps little can be done to correct the paths pursued in the past, but the future can always be corrected. Redeemed," he adds, using the word that Eliot himself used in his own poem.

[annihilist]

Devin slows with the Fool; he's still inclined to find somewhere serving alcohol at this hour, but that can come later. The smile he offers that disagreement is brittle.

"There's more to the poem," he notes. "But to him, at least, a life is best lived in the present, learning from the past. It's…" Devin trails off, thinking of how to explain. "Eliot was 77 when he died. I was 73. I don't have the same concept of mortality that he or any human does in my world. I've already lived most of two lifetimes, and I'm going to see more than I can count."

He turns his head, breaking eye contact. "More is lost in immortality than gained. Eliot's work is grounded in experience I can't have."

[afoolsgold]

"Eliot's work is grounded in experience I can't have."

"Yet that experience matters to you."

A life lived entirely with one's eye upon present concerns, without contemplating what the future will bring; that is a life that the Fool cannot relate to, either, having been groomed from birth to look to his dreams for signs of what is to come. To witness even in his waking world the intricate strings of fate that wend their way through living things and crucial world events--to pluck a string to set the course of the future upon a better road--that was what he was born to do. That was the destiny he'd allowed himself to die for.. and yet.

He studies Devin's face even as Devin looks away from him, his own expression fixed in one of intense internal contemplation. He opens his mouth to speak, closes it again. "It continues to shock me, how alike you and I are," he admits at last, almost laughing, a mirthless little sound. Then he looks to Devin's eyes again; his smile is melancholic. "And yet so very, very different."

[annihilist]

"I should hope far more different than the same. I would not wish the things I have done upon anyone else's shoulders."

Devin's mouth thins for a moment as he weighs the value of elaborating or not, and decides that he would rather not keep this secret much longer anyway. Then any friendship that has been extended would not be built on a lie.

"When I said fighting is what I do, Fool, I meant that literally. My life is one of war upon my own kind, and not to put to fine a point on it, but I'm very good at killing," he continues, steel creeping into his tone in anticipation of any backlash. "And while I make no mystery of hatred being part of what drives me, the greater part is so that people - living people - never have to know what horrors lurk in the darkness waiting to feed on them and rip apart their lives. I don't want them to have to live in fear - I want them to have what I can't, to not be burdened with worries beyond the many problems human already face. So yes, of course that experience matters to me. There's little that matters to me more," Devin concludes, perhaps more fiercely than he intends.

[afoolsgold]

His fierceness is honest and raw. The intensity of it, the latent aggression, might have frightened someone else. The Fool's eyes do widen a touch, but not from fear. He stands still before Devin and regards him with earnest amber eyes.

"I don't want them to have to live in fear - I want them to have what I can't, to not be burdened with worries beyond the many problems human already face. So yes, of course that experience matters to me. There's little that matters to me more."

He lifts a hand like he might touch Devin, might try to placate that ferocity with a gentle touch, but his hand hovers in the air between them, before his fingers curl and return instead to his own chest. He takes a breath and lifts his chin; something bids him be defiant, though what he defies, he is not sure. Deliberately, he says, "Then I shall stand by what I said at the turtle's head: you have a good heart, Devin Parker. A kind heart. Whether it beats as mine does hardly matters." Some of the defiance fades. "You are not a monster."

[annihilist]

Perhaps it shouldn't surprise Devin that the Fool is yet another of those people who don't flat out reject him for what he spends his life doing. Perhaps he should have expected the defiance, too, the refusal to see him as different based on that revelation. But it is surprising, and there's as much relief as confusion about the whole exchange visible in his expression.

Most of the Dreamfolk who know about his chosen occupation at least try to argue with him about it.

"What I am can't be separated from who I am," Devin says at length, since I have always been a monster doesn't seem like it will be met with anything but resistance. The Fool isn't the first to make that assertion, and it will take some time for Devin to believe it. "I think the incident inside demonstrated that rather loudly." He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "But... thank you for trying."