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 Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 9:50 am
Orah gave him her number with a level voice, feeling both ashamed and soothed. He said he was surprised by how different she was, and then explained away the difference as the generational gap. After some of the sharp words he had been giving her tonight, this last bit was almost... normal. It made her wonder, given everything she'd learned about him in this short time, how different his life was from her own. He had a darkness to him that she wasn't used to seeing, save when she wore her fuku. Was it simply the hard knocks of life that had made him this way?
She had to wonder, just a little, her face in thoughtful lines. Orah had heard stories, of course. Seen movies about lives that didn't follow the same lines as her own. People who had things harder than she did, or just different. Spending this time with him would give her some insight into things she'd never personally experience, and while she wasn't looking forward to the effort she was going to have to put into this, she was sort of anticipating learning things beyond her small world. The darkness called to her, beckoned with the mystery of the things it hid. They could be wonderful or monsterous, and there was only one way to find out.
Finally, key in hand and numbers shared, she stuck out her hand and watched him with piercing eyes.
"If you have any of that stuff with you, I want you to give it to me. Like you said, if we leave the start time to you, you'll might put it off, so we're starting now." Oh, that sounded so tough and no-nonsense... too bad it would probably blow right up in her stupid face. She knew she was getting in over her head, but heck... might as well jump in with both feet.
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Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 11:36 am
Alois gave in to a soft chuckle, watching her with a gaze mixed in mirth and melancholy. A sad departure, this - for not too long ago, Orah was a snowglobe girl, composed in a world of perfection and constancy. He observed her at will and examined her enclosure, the life she knew and nestled within that repulsed him so readily. But now? Now she left her bubble, warm brown hair and doe eyes and all, now she stood in the real world, with her hand out and gaze forceful, as if expecting to melt into this world as easily as the last. She tried to command a presence, one he might recognize as more dominant, and own the situation for herself. A snowglobe girl, a fixture, an icon of complacency.
"Oh, so you want me to gif' it to you? Just like zat? Hand it over wis'out any objections at all?" Searching his coat pocket, the misanthrope produced a stout vial of clear liquid - perhaps in a separate container, it sported no difference from water. Alois eyed the glass, tired gaze probing every soft swoop for a bubble or crack or ding. And in reading the label, he remembered the liquid complacency unspooling into his veins, where happiness bored into every pore and his mind very nearly liquefied. It felt good to remember - inviting. "If I had any reservations left about quitting, you would'f exacerbated zem about now. Will is a fickle sing, wouldn't you say?" Afterward, he dropped the heavy vial into her hand.
"I would suggest you keep it, for it functions as an excellent painkiller, but you lack ze inclination to defy ze law. Alternatively, I know where you lif' - and I'f broken into houses before." Alois withdrew the syringe shortly afterward, brandishing it toward the svelte girl by the capped needle. "I assume you'll want zis too."
Alois detested the strange weightlessness in his pockets; knowing the vial was gone raised a sense of slow panic that burrowed into the base of his thoughts. "I expect you tomorrow, Orah. Call if you're going to be late." Seeing no need to linger, Alois turned toward the bleak streets that stretched ahead, tapering down with naked trees crowning the corners. With his destination nowhere in sight, Alois began the journey with a beleaguered sense of duty.
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