Oct 20 22:25:15 107 PA - Trading Thought
From Chronicles
Oct 20 22:25:15 107 PA.
PLAZA PARK: Trading Thoughts
The crowd has essentially dispersed at this point, just about everyone gone save for a few scroungers who have come in late off the streets to gather what leftovers have fallen. Tables have been righted, trash disposed of. It's so late that it's early. The Sun is just beginning to come up in the east. Not high enough to be seen over the buildings of the city, and only bright enough to touch the overhead clouds with oranges and reds. That morning glow that people enjoy experiencing with a loved one asleep on their chest, in a comfortable bed. Alas, this is not to be. At least, not in the Plaza Park on this particular morning. However, some people are doing their best to enjoy it - one such person is Gabriel, who has found himself a semi-comfortable wooden bench to sit on, just watching the sunrise and probably trying to put the less-pleasant events of the previous evening behind him.
The rising sun is a pleasant sight, and one far more likely than some upon a bed, much less in a lover's embrace. Daeni steps across the grounds and towards the familiar man upon the bench. "Not sleep?" Her words are an amalgam, carrying both statement of observation and curious query.
Gabriel's head lolls toward the tall woman. Not a tired loll, just a lazy one. "Hmm?" he asks in that manner that people just knee-jerk offer when they can't immediately think of something better to say. He continues to look at her for a while before pursing his lips in a funny manner and stating simply, "Nope. No sleep. My record is just over four days without a moment's sleep before I become completely combat ineffective. Just thought I'd enjoy the morning." He smiles and quietly asks, "You?"
"Not sleep," Daeni answers his question with a shake of her head, "need little rest. Not sleep long when sleep." There is no boast in this detail, merely flat, perhaps regrettable, fact.
A nod. "All the better to survive with, I imagine. Yes, us poor humans, so weak and frail. Nature wants our bodies to fall unconscious for about a quarter of everyday. Yet we survive." He shrugs and grins ironically. "Go figure." As Gabriel's attention returns to the sunrise, has ask with a little drawl, "Sunrise orange and red on ah... Agol, too?"
Daeni rolls her shoulders at the former portion of his comments. "All need rest, peace. Sleep give both for many." Her eyes lift to follow his to the horizon. "Some get only rest. Sun same on Arol, sky much same."
"HUH," Gabriel bursts as a simple expulsion of air. "Sleep, yes. Rest, maybe. But peace? None. I will have no peace until I have had my revenge, even if the Lord Himself were to come down and tell me otherwise. Revenge is an act of passion, vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged, crimes are avenged. I will have my vengeance." Gabriel rolls his head toward the woman again. "I'm a peaceful man, and I live to bring peace and security to others who cannot do it themselves. But I will have my own personal vengeance." His eyes close slowly and remain closed for a while, before opening again and smiling weakly. "Sorry, Daeni. It's just hard to find peace when your heart knows little but rage."
"Not be sorry. Use rage," Daeni advises, "make strong. Lose much, now you take more from enemies." Her gaze turns and lowers upon Gabriel. "Get revenge, find peace. I only find in death."
Gabriel quirks an eyebrow. "You find peace in death?" The colonel shakes his head. "One of the men in Hazard taught the boys, 'Have the courage to live. Anyone can die.'"
Daeni's lips now curl into a familiar smirk. "I live, but will die. Is no peace in sleep, maybe find when dead." Her shoulders roll once more and she again looks to the rising sun. "Not wait long, will come soon. If smart, quick, you live long after me."
That grabbed the man's attention. Gabriel actually turns his body so that he's sitting on a hip, resting one arm across the back of the bench. "You expect to die soon? Do you know something that I don't know?" He then says in a softer voice, "Are you a Spartan? Just praying to the gods to die in glorious battle?"
"Best die in battle, not sickness, alone." Her attention remains upon the horizon for the moment. "Will die soon for elf, not soon for human." The smirk returns as she now looks to the man. "Have much time take own vengeance."
Gabriel narrows a single questioning eye at the elf woman. "Daeni, I can't tell if you're toying with me or if you're being cryptic about death." His eyes open in the method of visual shrug that most species of developed, asking the unspoken question.
Daeni arches both brows and steps over the bench back to crouch on the seat. "Not toy. Think was clear. What you not understand?"
"It is better to die in battle, rather than sickness. Unless you die of sickness surrounded by loved ones." Gabriel raises one shoulder and lowers it immediately. "You have lots of time to take your own vengeance, yet you're going to die soon for an elf? Apparently before me, you believe?" Gabriel looks mildly confused, despite the fact that the huntress may be being quite clear. "How long do you guys live, anyway?"
"Many ...century," Daeni is delayed a moment in search of the term, "if not killed. Watch many human child grow, have child, die, watch child become old, die, in time here. Was almost child when come here." She rolls her shoulders. "Now live years, not centuries."
Gabriel seems rather shocked by the information. "Hundreds of years? That must be amazing. Not just the long life, but everything that you could see. Meeting da Vinci, or Aristotle. Watching Caesar take Gaul. The Egyptians erect the pyramids." He hesitates, then just adds, "WOW." But then his expression comes more down to earth. "Wait. So... now you age like -" he pokes his chest with an index finger "- like we do? How'd that happen?"
Daeni shakes her head. "Not like you. More quick." A hand lifts to tap two fingers upon the scaled collar at her throat. "Is power , strength in blood. Has cost."
The man visibly starts, one of those full-body lightning-bolt strike movements. "WHAT?" Gabriel's eyes are wide, and his voice soft. He leans toward the woman as if it's a secret, which perhaps it is. "You went from living for time beyond what I could comprehend, to..." he searches for the right word, then says, "A shooting star?" With furrowed brow, he states again what he has said hundreds of times: "I do not like this world."
"Was strong hunter, not strong enough." Daeni's features contort in a scowl. "Live centuries in fear? As prey?" She looses a snort. "No. Choose live strong, take revenge. Better live day on feet, not year on knees. Not like this world, still learn survive here."
"Daeni, if you were... brought here by a storm, who exactly is it that you're taking revenge against?" Gabriel's expression is genuinely curios, a thoughtful countenance that shows that he genuinely cares for a friend.
While her tone softens somewhat, her scowl remains. "When first come, all try build new village here. Coalition come like demons, kill almost all. Was not battle, was slaughter. Now, Coalition is prey, be slaughtered. Not think kill all, kill all can is enough."
Gabriel allows himself to turn away, finally understanding, and allowing the huntress her space. "I can understand that. I won't try to tell you that we're in the same boat, but I understand. I lost loved ones, and I've lost those whom I was supposed to protect." His eyes turn back to the woman. "I may sleep, but I will not rest." After a short break, he muses, "Sometimes I wonder about the Coalition. Prosek, the modern Hitler. Hitler's armies were mostly conscripts pressed into service, men who didn't want to fight any more than our GIs did." He shrugs. "I wonder if the Coalition is the same."
"If not want fight, should not." Daeni shrugs once more, although her scowl fades, at the least. Her eyes drift from Gabriel, yet do not fully rest upon the horizon. "Not know human before Coalition. If all human not same, is good."
Gabriel smiles warmly. "I hope that you don't think that all humans are the same. I'd like to think that I'm a warm, peaceful, caring man, at least at my core. I'm not a killer, a sadist. Even though at times, those are qualities that become necessary." His eyes glaze over momentarily before adding, "Qualities that I will have to answer for when I die." His face then cracks into an ironic, stupid, laughing grin. "Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek. But he never had to deal with motherfuckers like this."
Daeni bears somewhat more than a smirk as she looks back to him. "You have rage in heart, but much else. Maybe live long, find peace." She subsequently adds, with a trace of contempt, "Or others make rage weak, and you die quick."
"I'm doing my best to live long, Daeni," Gabriel says with a wink. He then guides the discussion slightly away from life and death, rage and peace. "Those three assholes last night. What the hell were they? I was going to pop them before any of you even knew that they were there, but I saw those metal things poking out of their heads and decided that as this world is seriously fucked up, I'd best wait and make sure that they weren't going to squish me by thinking about it. So... do you know what's up with the bolts in the heads?"
"Put things in head," Daeni explains, in her limited vocabulary and understanding. "Make fast, strong, give mind power. Is like me, others, but cost is mind, not body. Why called crazy."
"They definitely did seem crazy," Gabriel allows. "I don't like this world," he repeats for the umpteenth time. He then asks a legal question of a hunter. Probably the same good advice that you could get from a $5 court-appointed lawyer. "Daeni, if I had plugged those bastards, what does the law say? Assuming that someone had caught me, would I be rotting in the slammer someplace awaiting a firing squad?"
Daeni responds with a distinct lack of knowledge, or perhaps interest. "Not know. Know many humans fear them, me also. Know are more strong, human not threat. You are weak, they are strong. If kill, maybe others not care."
Gabriel gives the huntress a sly look. "Oh, Daeni, you always over-estimate yourself. *I* can stop a bullet. Once." A very wide grin follows.
The discussion may or may not be interrupted by Terrance's arrival. Not special about him, other than he's packing a large tech pistol on his left hip and an even larger rifle across his back. Gaze catching, sky blue eyes are gazing around, to be seen by the night sighted or the determined. It looks like he's exploring the park, moving with grace and a surefooted power with every step.
You see an unassuming, and average to solidly built man standing before you. He stands around five foot nine inches, and couldn't weigh more than maybe a hundred and seventy pounds soaking wet. With sky blue eyes and sandy brown hair, he is slightly on the attractive side, but is otherwise plain. He seems to be of European descent, for those who can tell such things. He wears a well tailored outfit consisting of a plain black shirt, one that hugs his body and showing off his muscles as he moves, a plain black belt cinches closed a pair of baggy blue cargo pants.
Then entrance of another into sight is noted with a flicker of Daeni's eyes, but it is not an interruption. Her former smirk grows a measure at Gabriel's comment and she leans her gaze closer to his own. "Stop blade? Arrow? Fist?" Whether such is challenge, threat, or bemused taunt may be difficult to discern.
Gabriel chuckles. "No, no, my good and terrifying friend. Just a joke from my time. You know Superman? The Man of Steel? Impervious to everything? It's just a joke about us fleshy normals. *Anyone* can stop a bullet - once. Then you die." That still elicits a chuckle from the man, despite the fact that it was the second time that he was saying it.. and having to explain it. "I don't suppose Agol has any famous comedians, huh?" His drawl slides into thickness again.
Terrance stops walking for half a heartbeat as he listens to the two, the more interesting of the few conversations going on in the park. Although he's easily fifty feet away, he can hear every word, even as he looks around the park as if exploring. Then his gaze turns towards Gabriel and he smiles to himself, heading towards the man and his friend.
"Arol." Daeni corrects him, as before. She is not the only one in need of repetition, it seems. "Are many who joke, laugh there. Here is not Arol. Is not reason to laugh, not have time for joke."
Gabriel glances at his watch and rises slowly to his feet, waving at the incoming Terrance. Not that he knows the man, but just to be polite. "Miss Daeni, I'm afraid that I have to take off. Got a greasy merchant up there -" he nods northish "-who hired me because he things there's some kind of security problem." He shrugs and shakes his head. "Man's an idiot, but as long as he pays, it's work, right? Take care, I've enjoyed our talk this morning. Stay safe." With that, he begins to walk out of the park and toward Main, nodding respectfully at the other man as he passes.
