Jul 11 22:39:44 108 PA - Chatting over Morning Coffee
From Chronicles
Jul 11 22:39:44 108 PA.
TRADEWINDS COFFEE SHOP
The elder Gabriel is standing before the counter, chatting with the always-pleasant blue-skinned D-Bee girl named Tiffany. A sweet girl, but dumb as a post who very rarely gets orders correct on the first try. Or second. Sometimes not even the third. Yet having had his own children, the man is always patient and supportive, tipping even when he pays for excessive beverages and otherwise free pastries. Currently, there is a plate on the counter with a jungle of what are likely chocolate espresso brownies, a muffin and five large mugs of some kind of drink. Tiffany is working on yet one more. As he stands there, he shuffles just slightly, his equipment still settling itself from his earlier walk. Earlier as in very early, which means that the current beautiful morning is in point of fact... early.
Dirai meanwhile has made her way in to begin setting up her equipment. Having just gotten her guitar tuned, she begins strumming a few experimental chords. She calls out to Gabriel,"Hey, padre! Need some help carrying that?" She spontaneously sprouts four more arms. They all begin to strum at the guitar, plucking out a complicated melody. A rather western sound, to be exact,"Need some help carrying all that, or are you planning on balancing it all yourself. I'm sure my scheduled spot isn't going to get 'et up in the meantime."
The fellow at the counter places some credits before him, then leans across to give the girl what is the common - or was the common - European-style two-cheek kiss of departure. After a gentle clap on her shoulder, he turns, balancing everything on two plates. Gabriel grins across the room. Not yet quite crowded due to the hour. "Dirai! Dobroe utro urodlivye!" A non-American language grinds out of his mouth, and he walks in the guitar's direction. Perhaps not the woman, but the guitar. "I'm good, thanks. It's when I try to juggle them that I'll run into problems." A wide smile breaks across his face. "How are you and your you?"
Dirai replies, just as clipped, "Dobroe utro staryi." She chuckles, and strums something cheerful,"You DO seem to enjoy calling me ugly. Do you get some bizarre pleasure out of that, or is it one of those unconscious reactions." She puts one foot up on a chair, and begins a Spanish dancing tune,"Ai-ai-ai, me cielito y lindo..." She's not a particularly good or bad singer, despite her talent with the guitar. "IIIIII'd like to see you juggle."
Gabriel grins and bows a half-bow at the words, "Why thank you, my good amorphous blob." He approaches and appears to seem to be searching for one chair and table in particular. With his Kentucky accent, he says, "I'm sorry if it's offensive. Really, I'll stop. But all my life, most everyone I've known, loved, and worked with has gone by something more colloquial than their name. Hypocorism, jokes about something stupid that someone did, words of tenderness... odd physical features. Y'know, like calling the fat guy 'Slim.' I really didn't mean any insult." His bottom is then slid into a chair, apparently allowing any further discussion of the matter to be brought up by the other party in the conversation, noting with a smile, "Can you imagine how often I have to hear jokes about my age?" After a few strums of the guitar, he raises his voice and makes a motion to his opposite chair. "If you can ooze yourself in there, I have plenty of goodies to go around."
Dirai chuckles,"It only bothers me if it's meant offensively. It's hard telling with you. I could just try to read your mind or emotions, but that's impolite, rude. So I thought I'd ask you. Plus, conversation is more fun, less one-sided, and not as uncomfortable to receive." She does squeeze herself into the chair, continuing her wandering strumming,"I don't require nourishment, and I have no sense of taste. I don't mind, though, actually. Tell me... what did the others mean, if I may ask, by 'when will he admit his own power'?"
The fellow across the table holds up his mug - of some acceptable beverage type, who knows - and blows on it, brow furrowed in thought. After some decent amount of seconds, he shakes his head lightly. "I'm sorry, maybe I really am getting old. I'm not sure what you're referring to. Who's 'he' and who are 'the others'?" Pausing his cooling puffs for another time, he adds, "In my defense, I talk to a lot of people every day. Only the important and necessary conversations are really the ones that I bother to file away." Gabriel is quite genuinely at a loss, that much is obvious just by looking at his face. "I do appreciate not having my mind read, though it's fun to see the carneys do it."
Dirai smiles softly,"The 'he' is you. And the girls the other day are the ones who were talking about it." She pauses for a moment, and her mind almost absently goes elsewhere,"But you... you're... like a hole in the world. Not an inch of magic to you. Do you have any idea how odd that is? Impressive. But odd." She continues her bizarre little tune, apparently greatly amused by it,"Still, you're likable. You remind me of Padre, one of the bandits who raised me out on the Pecos. Very religious man, for all that he was... well... a bandit. Of course, you not being a bandit, the comparison isn't accurate per say..."
Gabriel clears his throat and sets his mug down. "I don't know about magic, truly. I don't get it. Or the brain stuff. It's beyond my understanding, really. Not because I'm an idiot, but because I'm suddenly living in an edition of Marvel Comics." With an odd smile, he continues, "My birth certificate reads, 'Gabriel Blaze, November 11, 1918, Kentucky, United States of America. Clearly, my own calendar is a bit out of date. As for my abilities? I was married at sixteen, a father at seventeen. Hitler came to power, and I joined the Marines when I was eighteen, figuring that was the best way to protect my family. I ended up serving more than two decades with the small unit special forces of the Marine Raiders, and as an individual agent with the Office of Strategic Services. My 'full abilities' I suppose are experience and good fortune at how I can do what I can do." He pauses to sip at his coffee. "There are many, many people around who know how to use more dangerous things than I do as far as brute force, but strategy and tactics seem to have disappeared, in favor of simply large explosives. No magic, just knowledge." The Kentuckian actually laughs quietly. "Revered elder, right?"
Dirai lifts a shoulder. If she's surprised, her lack of general facial features makes it hard to tell. "More useful than you know. I think... If I remember my history... That the Coalition is rather like your Nazi Germany. Except, instead of killing six million Jews, they're trying to kill anyone who isn't baseline human. Murdering fucks." Well, she's knowledgeable, even if she's nothing else,"That explains a lot about you, though. Time magic is tricky stuff. Psionics, though... that 'brain stuff'? It's much more natural. Any human can develop it. I didn't come by it naturally, though. Some pricks in the New German Republic shoved a bunch of metal rods in my head, and that's how I got here. I'm told it will eventually drive me irrevocably insane. That's when Maria will have to put me down, for good. Don't know how, though. Dying doesn't seem to take too well. Hurts, though. You're right, though. That's why the Coalition is the single largest cohesive mass of humanity, I think. They've got amazing resources, yes... but they're cohesive. Smart. They think about their moves."
The man nods. "Yes, very much like Hitler, the Third Reich and Nazi Germany, with the exception that the Coalition is being far more successful. As horrific as Hitler was, he was a syphilitic idiot who listened to propaganda, no military strategy, and the thousand-year Reich only lasted about a dozen years from declaration to devastation. The camps, they were horrible, but I never saw them myself. We were needed in special operations, not humanitarian operations." He shrugs and says in a tone that is both angry, sad, embarrassed and proud, "I killed a lot of people who got in the way of happiness and peace for everyone else. Before I continue to tell my story, if you're inclined to hear it, look at this for a moment." He unlatches a pocket that is right over his heart and slides a small photograph across the table. "You don't have much in the way of eyes, but you can see, apparently."
Dirai smiles that odd dent-like smile of hers,"A family. Huh. Something Maria and I can't have, you know? Your wife... she's very pretty." Her ectoplasm becomes a little blurry and ill-defined around the edges,"Killing Coalition soldiers. It's not... pleasurable, exactly. More like... soothing, when I think of everything they did to me. They ruined my chance at a life like that, you know? Still, you're right. Sight and hearing are two of the few senses really left to me." She extrudes another limb to touch the photograph, briefly. She twitches, perceptibly and her guitar playing even stops,"Sweet. You were a good father. They were happy to have you. The dress, the flute, the blanket. And the way you made them feel... comfortable. Food from all their little places... I'd have been lucky to grow up with a father like you. Christmas... isn't celebrated when you're on the move all the time. I don't know if this is of any comfort to you, but... I know there's an afterlife, and that gods exist. And even if I've never seen the God of the Jews.. Well, I've seen enough to believe there's a heaven and that you're bound there."
Gabriel nods his head and smiles, then sips from his mug before continuing. "Oh, I know. They're with God now, no matter what people believe their own particular higher power to be. I, ah.. well, Natasha and I, we were the only ones to come through. I don't know what happened to my girls. I'd like to think that they lived out their lives in happiness, and their children, and their children's children, and so on. But it's difficult not knowing." He lowers his eyes to the tabletop. "Natasha, she was killed just before we reached safety. Something that looked like the Gorn from Star Trek shot her in the back. She's buried in my clearing." He whispers what is probably a prayer before looking up and tucking the photo away, clearly at peace despite the subject matter of his own losses. "These technical things, I don't understand them. Time travel, teleportation. I don't know what they did to us. Still..." he cants his head sideways. "I've killed many men, and women too. If I think that a person is in the way of peace and harmony for the masses, I'll kill him where he stands, armed or not. Preferably not. But it should never be pleasurable or soothing. I do it because it's necessary for the common good, not because it makes me feel good to get back at people who have wronged me. I don't seek out those who killed my wife, for instance," he says in a very mild scolding tone.
Dirai tilts her head slightly, and then, for a change, emotion creeps into her voice. And probably something else Gabriel's heard before in his life: a touch of madness. "They took my life. Paralyzed me. Turned me into a freak with no future, and no present. I'm just a memory, for all intents and purposes. They took me when I was sixteen. Then they cast me aside when they were done. When they found me and I looked interesting, they wanted to experiment on me. I'm at danger while they exist. Everyone is. Whether it should be soothing or not, it is. Because I won't pass on to whatever 'next life' there is until the spine of the Coalition is broken. Maybe it's my white whale... but that's how it is. I am only the ill they made coming back to them." Her form blurs around the edges for a moment. She sounds.. bitter. "Anyway, what hurt your wife? I'd guess it was a griot. Mean bastards."
The anger does a good job of not really seeming to phase Gabriel, who just politely listens without any form of interruption. "I've said this before to people, Dirai, and I'll repeat myself. Whether or not you agree, that's up to you; but like I said, I have the benefit of years. Almost everyone has had something bad happen in their life, some more than others. My parents died when I was very young, and I supported myself during the Great Depression shooting rats at a garbage dump. Wasn't even a teenager yet. I had to kill a man when I was ten, because he was trying to rape one of Hazard's teenage girls. That's a very serious trauma to a little boy. But I kept it, and I grew with it, and I'm who I am today, happy enough, strong enough. The Coalition did something to you, okay. That sucks. I can't imagine what it's like, or understand what you're saying." He pokes a gentle finger across the table. "But it would be better for you to accept what you have and figure out how to turn it into something good, than it would be to hold a grudge until you eventually find a way to die." He nods, then falls silent, sipping from one of the variety of mugs before him. It's early in the morning, with the disc of the sun just risen over the eastern horizon. The larger coffee-crowd is beginning to slip in slowly. Gabriel and a possibly disgusting mass of ectoplasm are seated near one of the large plate-glass windows, talking, though Gabriel seems to be the only one enjoying food and drink.
Dirai is quiet for the moment after the mild scolding. Instead, her attention turns to her guitar. That's right. Miss Omnipotent is sulking like a small child.
Erica walks through the doors, into the coffee shop. She is wearing her usual urban military fatigues. She looks around briefly and spots both Gabriel, and the ectoplasm that is Dirai. She stops in shock for a moment, and shakes her head. After a few seconds she manages to get a hold of herself. Heading to the counter she orders herself a frozen mocha latte. Once she gets her drink she heads over to where Gabriel is sitting. "Hi Gabriel. What are you up to?"
Gabriel smiles and extends a toward where Dirai is seated, in her blobby fashion. "I'm speaking to Miss Universe on the subject of life, love, loss and how to live without a heart full of anger. She liked the photograph of the family, but I'm not sure that she's impressed by my philosophy. Anyway, Erica, this is Dirai, omnipotent but not omniscient ectoplasmic two-people-in-one. Dirai, this is my friend Erica, not omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and except possibly during coitus, only one-person-in-one." He smiles at his own dirty joke, then awkwardly drags a third chair around to the table, gesturing for Erica. "Please, sit. I have plenty more if you're thirsty." Indeed, Tiffany screwed up again, and he has four additional mugs and a pile of pastries before him.
Dirai just stares at Erica for a moment. Then again, since she doesn't have any sort of face to speak of, it's kind of hard to tell. Eventually, however, she does grow another limb, which forms a hand that offers to shake one of Erica's,"Hello. Gabriel, as you may've noticed, is being quite droll today."
Sasha steps into the coffee shop and takes a quick glance around without really moving her head to do so. After a few moments she walks towards the bar and moves to take a seat as far from anyone as she can. On the way however she does offer a polite, if coolly toned, "Erica." In greetings to the other woman before she settles into her seat and then summons the barista. "The usual." Is then ordered.
Erica takes the seat that is offered and gives Gabriel a brief smile. "Thank you." She says before nodding her head briefly to Dirai. "Nice to meet you." She says with another quick smile before she takes a sip of her coffee drink. "He usually thinks he is being quite funny, but he rarely is." She says with some laughter in her voice. Erica is sitting next to Gabriel and across from the ectoplasmic form of Dirai. Spotting Sasha she nods her head to the elf woman in a quick greeting. "Sasha."
Gabriel smirks. "Family history is always fun. You asked, Dirai, you can't put all of this on me. You play a nice guitar," comes out as a bit of a non sequitur. There are no apologies. With a look to Erica, he asks, "Find any work yet, or is this morning coffee fueling you up to knock on doors and pound on the bad guys?" The new woman, Sasha gets a smile and nod, but nothing further.
Dirai lets out a soft 'ooooh' after studying Sasha for a moment, and murmurs to Erica,"She's an elf. Right. That's why she appears to have a large metal pole jammed firmly up inside of her anus." She's mean when someone tells her she's wrong, apparently.
Sasha absolutely ignores Dirai's comment, and Gabriel's nod, instead focusing her attention on the coffee that is provided to her and to which she adds copious amounts of sugar and then a dash of cream before stirring the hot drink. She takes a sip to test the taste of the coffee, adds a touch more sugar and then wraps both hands around the cup, blowing softly on the surface.
"Well if certain jobs would start already then that would be nice, but I'm still looking for something in the short term." Erica says to Gabriel with a little smirk of her own. At Dirai's joke she snorts, and almost spits out some of the coffee drink. She manages to recover, and flashes Dirai a quick grin. "Possibly."
Gabriel passes on Sasha's passing of himself. To Erica, he offers only, "There's lots of stuff happening out there in the city. It's all over the news, even if you don't hear about it bars. I'm sure that there are plenty of other people working, doing things that could be done. Maybe you're not looking in the right places?" As far as the joke, Gabriel seems to have missed the punchline. Which is fair, because lots of people miss his. He resumes sipping at his coffee.
Dirai goes back to playing her guitar with her full attention at this point... except for the jaunty tune she sings along with her expert performance. If only her voice were as good as her guitar. "I hear elves eat babies." Not even trying, with that false little rumor.
Apparently, either it's true, or so farcical that Sasha doesn't bother to respond to that comment either. Instead she simply sips at her coffee and ignores the comments of the ectoplasmic being though she does look suddenly thoughtful about something and then a faint smile curves her lips at the corners before she takes another sip of coffee.
"Thank you for the useless advice Gabriel. I'm not a detective. So all that crap is fucking useless to me." Erica says while rolling her eyes and shaking her head. "Maybe you could mention something that I can do?" She shakes her head again and then takes a drink from her coffee. "How have you been Sasha?" She asks not responding to Dirai's joke.
Gabriel rolls his eyes imperceptibly and sets his mug down as his rises from his seat. "Erica, you're a grown woman and self-proclaimed expert at scouting. I'm not going to hold your hand and take you to work. Use your head. If you're that good a scout - how about doing some scouting? Just a thought that I'll float out there." As he collects his briefcase, he opines, "In *my* time, it was the sign of a good soldier to be resourceful in every way possible. Even as a team, if you failed, you failed together. Just complaining that it isn't easy and trying to put it on the head of someone else for not supporting you isn't a great avenue for advancement." He nods and starts to push his chair in.
"Oh, I've been well enough Erica." Sasha says in a slightly more conversational tone of voice, "Though I just wondered about your choice of companions of late. Entities like that typically seem to enjoy causing conflict and instability, corruption and loss. That one -could- be different, but..." She lifts her metal shoulder in a slight shrug before she takes a drink from her coffee. Looking over at Gabriel she studies him a moment, "Judging everything by unassailable standards, is exactly what the Coalition does. If you're so keen to be a soldier, try there." She says coolly then looks back to her coffee.
Dirai has advice for Erica, though apparently not good advice. "I highly suggest you learn to live without nourishment. Then having no job is no problem." She's an expert. Still, she does affix Sasha with what would be a cool-eyed gaze. If she had eyes. Or a face. "I'll have you know, I'm 100% human. Well, damn near omnipotent, augmented human. But human."
"I don't know what she is Sasha. I'm just sitting down and having some coffee. She hasn't caused any corruption yet that I can see." Erica says to Sasha with a brief shrug of her shoulders. She chuckles briefly at Dirai. "I'll see what I can do about that, but highly unlikely to happen. Turning her head towards Gabriel she shakes her head. "You were the one that asked about me finding work. You brought up the subject. If you don't like what I have to say then don't bring it up."
The other woman's words catch Gabriel's ear, but apparently don't tug at his heartstrings enough to warrant comment. A look is returned. Not a cool look. No.. actually a pleasant and warm look, mostly reflexive, then he returns to his regular conversation. If there were an argument or philosophic debate to be started, it's clearly not with him. "I asked you how work was. You said bad. I offered options. You complained that I wasn't helpful enough. I suggested better ways to find work. I'm the one who's been positive here, so don't bring your passive-aggressive attitude down on me, Erica." He calmly hefts his briefcase and makes to leave. He uses his hand like a child's fleshy pistol toward Dirai. "Stay beautiful, doll." There's an obvious good-natured laugh in his voice.
Sasha rolls her shoulders in a slight shrug, "Humans, don't appear to be made of ectoplasm, and nothing is omnipotent. If you are some sort of augmented human, then at least I can take some small measure of pleasure in the fact that you will not truly last and your inane attempts to be insulting will not last forever." She smiles then and takes another sip of her coffee, apparently, that's a good thought to the elven woman.
Dirai smiles ever so politely (in her head) at Sasha, then offers,"And I will take pleasure that my inane attempts at insulting you have so irritated you that you take pleasure in the thought of my demise. See? We both get something out of it, cat-girl." A reference to the ears. "You're, like, a furry's wet-dream." Yep, downright fussy. Still, she molds one of her several limbs into a mild approximation of a gun and points it at Gabe,"Stay feisty, young 'un."
"Yes suggesting things that I can't do. That is very helpful." Erica says with obvious sarcasm in response to what Gabriel says. "I don't have the skills you do. It is pretty silly of you to assume that I can do what you can. But it doesn't matter what I say because you'll just assume that I am being lazy." She turns her head then towards Sasha and Dirai, and her lips curve into a slight smile as the two bicker. She chuckles a bit and then grabs her drink as she stands up. "Well I have to run. Sasha is was nice to see you again. Dirai, nice to meet you."
"Take care Erica." Sasha says from her stool at the bar, giving the woman a polite, if slight, nod. She still doesn't bother to look at Dirai, and doesn't respond to her last comment at all. Her coffee seems much more intriguing now as she takes a larger drink now that the liquid has cooled somewhat. She plants her elbow on the bar and her chin goes into her palm while metal fingertips lightly tap out some beat or another on her coffee cup.
Dirai's comment elicits a broad grin across Gabriel's face. "Good! We understand each other." As Erica begins to depart, he only says, "That wasn't the word that I was going to use, but sure, let's use it." He's currently standing over a chair that he's either about to get into, or just got out of. Dirai's shapeless form is across from him, and they're near a large window open to the rising morning sun. There is another woman, Sasha, as far away as she can get, yet still be in the same room. For the moment, it appears that the outgoing Erica has given Gabriel pause as to his own direction of travel. Or travel at all.
Sasha just sits at her stool, nurses her coffee, and otherwise goes about ignoring the rest of the bar it seems.
For himself, Gabriel appears as if he wants to re-seat himself, but seeing as how he's already made plans to depart, he does just that, offering Dirai a final wave before passing through the doors.
