exsilium | [ text/anon (not heavily encrypted) ]

I have no objections.

[ and then shortly after, a private text message: ]

My name is Chrysos.

It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Oz.

( he sends the directions to the place, a small and cozy one still transport-friendly, in the reply. he'll go ahead and start on his way there after sending the reply. )

[ He takes a moment to shoot back a brief description of who to look for (blonde short hair, a purple headband) before tucking away the device and starting for the place in question.

It isn't too long after Oz arrives that the doors open again and a tall young man-- no more than early 20s, surely-- steps in, raincoat dripping from the weather. Casually scanning the place as he shucks off his raincoat and folds it over an arm. ]

( oz has been keeping an eye out, so when chrys walks in, he'll be greeted with a cheerful wave from one of the booths. he's not especially tall and somewhat slight, but makes up for that, it seems, with enough good spirits for about three people. his own raincoat is beside him on the seat, an umbrella balanced against its end. )

( There's a blink, and an acknowledging nod on spotting him. Chrys wends his way to the booth in question, though he doesn't sit down just yet. Just to clarify: ]

Oz?

That's right.

( he affirms easily, tone just side of well of course. )

You're a lot taller in person, Chrysos.

( oz you might just be short. )

[ Politeness means not commenting on any height issues faced by the other party. At the first meeting at least. So he'll raise an eyebrow, since it's not the first time he's heard that line, anyway. ]

Well, you are seated. [ Levelly, as he sets his coat down and slides into the seat across from Oz.

There. Issue somewhat rectified. (Somewhat.) ]

( somewhat, and the serious answer makes him smile. )

Have you ever been here before?

[ A shake of the head, and a glance back at the rest of the premises. It's a little nicer than most he's been to in the last few weeks. ]

I'm afraid not. ...though I've seen it in passing. [ Places like these are rarely ventured into without someone to meet in them, anyway. At least for him. His brother, on the other hand...

...thinking about Red brings that familiar faint gnawing feeling in his gut, so he turns his eyes on Oz again, studying him frankly instead. To cut to the chase or not? It's not as though there's reason to hurry this minute, but.... ]

They have a tea called "chai" that's really good here — I'd never heard of it before I got here, but I've heard it's pretty authentic! Their regular teas are nice too, and Gil likes the coffee, but my favorite is some of the pastries...really, you have your pick of what you'd want to try.

( the study isn't lost on him, but he waits until after he's finished talking, and a beat after that, to address it without changing his tone a bit. )

Though maybe you'd prefer to ask your questions first.

[ ...manners. His old caretaker would've insisted on it, considering the courtesy being extended to him. ]

They are not so dire that they cannot-- [ catching himself ] --can't wait a moment longer.

...the coffee would be good. [ With a slight, awkward smile. It was strange, how some comforts of food and drink were constant between worlds. ]

How adult-like!

( it's — not actually said to tease, even if it could seem that way; and in any case a moment later a waiter comes to ask for their orders. oz requests tea and cake, before both he and the waiter turn to chrysos with an expectant look. )

[ And judging by the quiet ngrk and instant switch from awkward-smile to awkward-frownlines, teasing it may have landed as. (Damn it, he is an adult. It's bad enough getting it from his elders, but... hrrngh.)

In any case, the waiter's arrival and distraction is just enough time for him to compose himself, and he makes his own request for a cup of coffee, no milk, no sugar, thank you. ]

( he grins, unable to help himself. there's a bright hum at chrysos's order (even more adult-like, okay, very reminiscent of gil), but he doesn't interrupt; after taking the order, the waiter takes his leave. )

[ Coffee dark as night's as what greases the gears of men, or at least that's the adage his guild-mentors used to swear by, and from then on it was a matter of dutifully applying the stuff to one's tastebuds until the latter were convinced they were, in fact, a beverage of choice. (Not that Chrys had ever been known for a particularly discerning palate in the first place, but it had still taken. A while. To derive what might be considered enjoyment from it.)

As soon as the waiter disappears Chrys leans back in his seat, clearing his throat, as though the act might reset the mood, and... right. Order of business. Yes.

Ignore the fact that the grin on Oz's face is, more likely than not, directed at him. ]

...if I might ask-- how long have you been in this city?

( he leans back into his seat, content to wait on his sweets — and content in general, perhaps, because he's decidedly unruffled by the question. )

Almost seven months, by now.

( it's an immediate answer; he's always kept track of the months, strange as they are against the calendar he's used to keeping, and so knows it by this place's reckoning. )

[ Two hundred seventy-more days and nights, by Earthen calendar year, and there's a figure to sober a mind and its outward face up. He'd never been away from Corehaven for longer than a month.

A glance out the window by the main doors, at the grey and rain outside. ]

I've heard tell that the first Transports were brought here over a year past, for this war. [ A beat's pause, before his eyes flick back to Oz again. Bluntly: ] Would you say there's been progress made at all?

That's true.

( and longer; collette and caesar have been around a year, but there are those who've predated their appearances here. oz doesn't know any of them personally that he's aware of, but he knows there are such people around.

the question makes his smile start to drop, flatten out into more of a line, and his eyes flick away for a moment. have they made progress, or have things just got worse? )

It's hard to say. The nature of the enemy means that we can't fight them in direct strikes — it's pointless. ( it'd only invite annihilation. ) That's why the missions to the past are the only way these people can fight. As for progress...

( he trails off, then shrugs apologetically )

I'm sorry. It really is hard to tell for sure.

Edited 2013-09-16 18:51 (UTC)

[ A twinge of regret, almost, at the way Oz's smile falters and fades like a dying candle. But questions like these are answered as much by act and tone as by word, and so the reply, though not the most comforting, at least feels solid to Chrys.

Indirect strikes. Tampering with past and time. He'd wondered, a few times since the first day, what purpose drawing one like him (and of what relicquated knowledge, skill, everything compared to all this) could serve, but in the light of what their true work involved... one could begrudgingly admit they could likely use someone like him. Even if in the last month the days had passed in little more than a blur of aimless training and reading and wandering about the city. A grey sabbatical.

But they'd fought, these people. These ones who'd been here far longer than him. (Thinks of Chrono-- you can see it in their faces-- and cold text on a screen, news of a failure of a mission, a world destroyed.)

He nods slowly. ]

...apologies aren't necessary. It was an honest answer.

( he almost wants to laugh. it's a rare day he's called honest, and there's so much about the day that world was lost he still hasn't spoken of to anyone, even those he knows would be angry at him for it, because it was too much that day and pushed away after. grief and terror and rage and blood and smoke — spectres of a time past that should stay there, he thinks. )

Still, I'd rather have a better answer to give you.

[ There's a difference between an honest answer and an honest person, after all, and while Chrys can't say that the boy sitting before him is the latter (too soon to say), the former's easier to discern, most times. And having already heard (read) him admit upfront to The Disaster That Was, Chrys doubts he'd get rose-painted pictures from Oz now, over such as this.

Bitter realities. Apply them to oneself enough, too, and they'd become a convincing preference. Maybe. A rueful smile. ]

I doubt most of the answers there are to give are so.

( it's a topic he'd spoken to kano about, in the dark underground while the ground shook from massive united earth attacks — in the dark anyway, in oz's case, because the selfsame ue had made sure to maim before they went to kill — about truth and liars, about their rosy misapprehensions about this place from their early days here, how fairly inevitable it is for newcomers to find out about these horrific things that have come to pass. how cruel it is if newcomers don't, to have to find out the same way they had. )

Well, ( brightening as the waiter approaches with their respective cups ) there are some. The tea and coffee here really are quite good.

[ Even kindness can be (must be) cruel at times, if only to prevent greater cruelties to come. A philosophy Chrys is familiar with, from the grueling training that marked his apprenticeship alone (days that seemed so far away, now), meant to forge and refine and weed out all but the best, those who would be charged with a city's mechanical heart in their hands.

And now here he is, a novice again, in a sense.

The smile broadens a fraction at Oz's comment, though only briefly, and he looks up as the waiter approaches, with a quiet word of thanks as the cups are set before them. ]

...they certainly smell well enough. Though I'm told I'm a poor judge.

[ The hands that reach for his coffee are wrapped in woolen gloves, thick and plain brown, with small holes for fingertips; if there's one thing he still hasn't quite gotten used to about life in the city, it's the cold that permeates it, temperatures that would have only been found in the ice-rooms of shops and houses back home. ]

( he takes the brief smile for a victory, his own buried in his pleasure over the arrival of their drinks and, a moment later, his slice of cake. gil would never approve of course, all you're going to rot your teeth and ruin your appetite, but what gil doesn't know won't hurt him, particularly when sweets are involved. )

I doubt that! Anyone can notice the aroma of a really good tea or coffee.

( perhaps have trouble differentiating good from bad, but the far end spectrums seem to him obvious enough. exsilium isn't precisely known for its quality ingredients — quality anything — so it's all relative; a good tea in reveil would be unthinkably rare and expensive here. but there's value in the ingredients here too, in things put together with affection and honest efforts. the people here, whom he's come to care for dearly, have built up their whole lives in a place where they were supposed to languish and suffer.

it's, perhaps, the sweetness of survival. )

That seems quite a generous opinion.

[ It's been a running joke for years with those who've known him, his sense of taste (Chrys thinks of it as "undemanding", they call it "leather-tongue"), and while the jibes and mock-horror are a point of irritation at times, he's content, at least, in the ability to imbibe just about anything short of the empirically inedible. The coffee is hot, and refreshing to the sip, and warms him up inside, and that's good enough for him. And maybe it's the enthusiasm Oz has for it, that seems to flavor it better than the stuff to be found at the Hold.

He watches the delight on Oz's face as the cake arrives, like nothing so much as a child and his sweets (the thought fails to be much of a simile, even, seems precisely what it is.) Wonders, in passing, about the life he was taken from, this boy with the manner and tastes of a gentleman's son, and features toeing the line of a coming of age (already past, perhaps) and eyes bright enough to obscure what glimpses of opacity might be. Wonders how much of him is seven months' engagement in this war (how much is to cope.)

A quiet sigh, blowing steam from his cup. ...it seems unfair to ask more questions before Oz has a chance at digging into that cake.

But small talk isn't Chrys's strong suit either, so he takes a moment to busy himself with examining his cup, for lack of words. ]

Edited 2013-09-18 18:08 (UTC)

[ text/anon (not heavily encrypted) ]

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scene change scene change /o/ \o\

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