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 Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2017 5:54 pm
"All right then." He wouldn't force her to drink anything if she didn't want to. Seeing as she left enough space on the couch he decided that he would sit next to her, though he left plenty of room so they wouldn't be bumping into each other. He smiled a bit sadly. "I wish I had a secret, but it's mostly just having an apartment in my home city and staying there most of the time. I've barely even used this room." It was true, considering he didn't see a point so far in him being here he had mostly stayed in San Francisco so far. "Though I think the secret would be putting everything away as soon as possible." He replied, looking around at the room. He could use some sort of hobby decorations or something. "So... I know we talked a bit before, but what keeps you here exactly?" He wanted to know, so far he hadn't found any reason for himself to be here.
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Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 9:04 pm
Beth gave him an encouraging smile when he decided to sit next to her--rather than across from her on the bed or anywhere else. Then she shifted on the cushion so that she could still look at him, even if it curled her posture into something more inviting. She did note that he 'left some room for Jesus' between them. Beth didn't know if she should take it as a sign of respect or disinterest. "I guess that explains why I haven't seen you before Louisiana. Though I feel like I'd recognize that hat anywhere."She thought about his question, now very much wishing she had a drink to sip--a time honored tactic to stall for time. "I wasn't really motivated to finish my Master's, I guess, if I'm honest. I guess the idea of magic and gods kind of swept me up. Didn't really figure on the monsters, though." She paused, thinking and revising and contextualizing what she could possibly say next. "It's all so different, isn't it? Here in the Prytaneum, I mean. With all of the," she waved a hand vaguely, "stuff going on. And even if we were allowed to, it'd be hard to talk to friends and family about it. The people I've met here have kind of helped me deal with it. It's crazy, right? What we do? It helps knowing that we've all got each other. None of us are alone."
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Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 3:30 pm
Tom relaxed a little, spreading a bit more out, though not enough to invade Beth's space or anything. He blushed a bit at her position, but didn't say anything as of yet. He smiled. "Yeah, I tend to wear the hat everywhere if I can. I probably have permanent hat-hair at this point though." He did brush it, but it usually got destroyed being under the hat anyway. He chuckled a bit. "Well, I already had completed my schooling by the time I was called to do this, but I would suppose that this place is a bit more interesting than regular college or university." He probably would have quit schooling too if he had been chosen earlier. "I'm not sure if my family or friends would believe me if I told them, though sometimes I have wanted to tell them. It's kind of inconvenient having to make up why I'm not home as much anymore." He did silently agree with her last point though. "I'm glad that you've had help here though. I guess I just don't feel as welcome here because I haven't gotten to know very many people. Though that's mostly my own fault." He paused, not sure if he should say anything else. But... "I'll be back in a minute, I need to get something to drink." And he did, but when he went to the kitchen he also got her a glass of water as well, just in case and came back carrying the two glasses and holding one out to her, smiling. "Here, I got you one anyway."
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:51 pm
The smile Beth gave Tom was equal parts charming and relieved. "Thanks, Tom." She took the glass from him and took a delicate sip as she thought about how to respond. "Well, you know me, now! And I have a whole social circle. I'm sure you could find some people who tickle your fancy." She wasn't quite ready to lay bare her insecurities, to reveal how much she suffered at the divide splitting her and the people who used to be all-important to her. "So does the hat have a story?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 7:46 pm
Tom blushed a bit at her smile. He really should stop acting so shy, he wasn't usually this shy, really! At least she took the glass though, so he was free to sit back down on the couch and relax once again. He had been a bit worried. Just because she said she wasn't thirsty she could still be dehydrated, and winter was dryer than summer. His doctor side was starting to come out a bit. "I'll have to start hanging out with you more then." He replied, smiling gently before taking another sip of his drink. He paused, trying to think of a good way to tell how he got his hat. "It's not much of a story. My mom is a famous singer, or at least she was, and when I was little I didn't get to see her that much, but one time when we were able to go out shopping together I saw a black cowboy hat and really wanted it. And while usually she gives me pretty much anything I want, I haven't taken advantage of that a whole lot, seriously, it's just one of the few gifts I've really treasured from her. I mean it's certainly reusable, and I don't have to mess with my hair as much if I wear it." He replied, chuckling a bit at his own self-admitted laziness.
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 5:57 pm
Beth made a mental note to include Tom on the invite list if anything fun popped up. "It doesn't just pass the time, but making friends can help ease the tension on missions too!" Hera knew she wouldn't have been able to survive the bayou without her friends chasing after her. She was interested in the tidbit about his mother, though. "You seem so," she cycled through a few possible adjectives before settling on, "grounded for having a headlining mother. What's her name?" She was curious. Though she herself was no stranger to glitz and glamour, her father was one of those who had fortune, not fame. She had no idea what being the child of a celebrity entailed. Beth nodded indulgently at the "laziness" behind the hat's omnipresence. "Seems like as good a reason to me!"
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2017 4:28 pm
Tom smiled a bit. He had plenty of friends back in San Francisco but here? At most he had made just a couple of acquaintances. Quite different from his life back home. He thought about it for a bit. Should he tell her? He shrugged. "Sara Wolf. And I'm pretty sure that's because my parents treated me pretty normally. Sent to a normal public middle and high school and they didn't spoil me and my brother just because we were rich." That and he didn't really go to a ton of parties, his father hated hosting. He chuckled a bit. "Yeah, the hat just makes it a bit easier to get up in the morning." He cocked his head to the side a bit. "What was it like for you growing up?
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2017 2:36 pm
Beth blinked and then leaned forward, a gleam in her eye. "No way. I remember being at a party where she performed! That's just crazy!" She gave Tom a look as if seeing him for the first time. "I heard she was trying to keep life simple for you two. That must have been," her eyes glittered as she swallowed the impulsive word that was about to spill out, "enlightening!" Not the best word, but certainly better than what she had been about to say. Her parents had Opinions on the idea of public school. She was not about to regurgitate them for Tom. "Well, I was an only child, so it's been Father, Mother, and me for as long as I could remember. They enrolled me in private schools and academies--I almost spent a few years abroad, but decided against it when they just took a vacation to all the places I wanted to go." She hesitated, then said, "It was lonely, I'll admit, but I had plenty of friends and well, I'd say it was good." Her excitement had lessened somewhat, and she sounded like she was tiptoeing around certain subjects...which was more or less her normal tone.
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Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 7:37 pm
Tom felt a little proud and embarrassed at Beth having seen his mother perform. He didn't know his mother talked about them that much. "Well I hope you enjoyed it. She really seemed to like it." He replied smiling at her, though raising a brow when she spit out "enlightening". He was sure she was going to say something else, but perhaps he didn't want to know. "Well, I hope it wasn't too bad for you." He only said that because she seemed to not really believe what she was saying, but perhaps he had misheard her. "We traveled to, but my father liked staying in San Francisco too much and the company headquarters are located there anyway." He mulled a bit. "My little brother is okay, he's already married to one of the little sisters of one of my best friends." It was a friend he was very close too and realized that he needed to meet up with the man again soon. "You'd be surprised, but I act a lot different back in San Francisco than around here. I suppose it's because I haven't really made a lot of connections." He took another sip, noticing that his glass was getting close to empty. "You like it here? I mean you probably do, but I mean do you feel like you belong here?" He couldn't help but ask. He felt like he was the only one with no feeling of belonging.
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Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 8:38 am
"Oh, your mother was lovely, so wonderful."Beth briefly entertained notions of the seemingly shy doctor dancing on a table with a beer in hand, hat almost falling off his head. She couldn't keep a giggle from slipping out. "'A lot different,' you say? I wonder what you mean by that."At his last question, Beth took another sip of water, mulling her answer over. "No, I guess I don't. I mean, I have friends and they make me feel welcome. A spot of normality among all the monsters and the fighting." She sighed, tilting her head up to consider the ceiling, other hand going to lightly trace the shape of beads under her black turtleneck. "But I do honestly have to wonder. What kind of place does the Chosen of a goddess of marriage and family have in saving the world? I certainly don't know why Hera Chose me. And then there's the Chosen of Ares or Aphrodite or Hephaestus who are all pretty self explanatory." She shrugged. "So I help where I can, even if that's just helping people keep it together or just hanging out with someone who's feeling lonely."She looked Tom in the eye and reached over to pat his shoulder. "Friends definitely help."
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Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2017 7:25 pm
Tom was glad that his mother was getting such compliments. He gave Beth a look though, a smirk forming at his mouth. "I'm not sure what you're thinking, but I'm a lot less shy than you would think and have quite a few friends. Here though? Might as well be the nerd who stays in his room playing video games all the time." He snorted a bit at this own self-image, annoyed at himself that he still hadn't made any real connections at the Prytaneum. He nodded in understanding though. "I know what you mean. Even though I am a doctor and Apollo is the god of doctors, that doesn't necessarily mean I know my place either. Honestly back home I was just hoping to just be a private general practitioner and now? Well apparently we're supposed to do... something here. But we've been given so little direction that I don't know what they want us to do, unless they just want us to figure it out ourselves." Annoyance was starting to slip into his voice now. "I would have been just as happy just being a regular doctor without some great destiny or something." He couldn't help it but be slightly bothered by the fact that they were contacted once by their gods and then it was silence since then. He looked away a bit, trying to calm himself down. "I just... I don't know why I come back here."
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Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2017 5:29 pm
"That's always how it is when you go to a new place with vastly different people, isn't it? You find that your personality is largely restricted by the people you were with and the circumstances surrounding you at the time." Beth paused, noticing how introspective the words were and possibly regretting them. But she forged ahead anyway. "That's usually the high school to college transition, but we, lucky ducks, get to experience it again, only we're all magical warriors Chosen by gods to enforce their divine will on the earth!" She'd wanted to say something cheeky and cheery or invite him to hang out with more people, but what had come out of her mouth was more philosophical than all that. At the stress tightening his voice, Beth gently moved her hand to his forearm, giving him a reassuring pat. "Should we really be holding the Hellenic pantheon to more rigorous standards than we do the Christian one?" She followed the more intellectual bent of the topic with a nonchalance that she hoped calmed than provoked him. "I guess calling mortals to serve and then letting them decide what that means is just part of the divine handbook." She sighed, pressing her lips together. "But I guess I'm with you there. I'd really love some kind of direction instead of this...tepid whatever-it-is. Though I also suppose I wouldn't prefer not being Chosen. " She was loath to follow that train of thought, wondering what would become of her if she had been left to her own devices and the machinations of her actual mother. Paling, she tried to retrace her mental steps back to their conversation. Right. Crisis of faith. With a side of identity angst. "You come back to be a hero. You have faith that you're meant to be here, that your presence on these mission-things means something, something just as important as seeing patients at a hospital. Can any of your colleagues take on a swamp witch and survive? Or a flock of very angry metal birds and their mama?" She had no idea if these words meant anything to him. But she had to hope, both in the veracity of her statement and in his personal motivations.
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Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2017 5:32 pm
"I wish I could say I agree with you, but sometimes I feel like a bit of a stick-in-the-mud with how unsociable I am here. And at least at colleges and universities you can join various interest groups or meet other people in classes. Here though? Well, you have to hope you run into the right people practically if you aren't as sociable as I am." At home he had his childhood friends, those that he shared the same interests with, and during his undergraduate and graduate degrees he got to know his fellow classmates and joined various clubs that made it a bit easier getting to know people. "Here though, we have no direction. For someone like you it means something, but this could be considered just a hobby to me. He continued to look away. He had probably just insulted her for a bit though he hoped not. He knew that others were getting along a lot better than he was here so far. Perhaps he was just venting a bit or angry at himself, but Beth didn't deserve to be insulted. "Sorry, I"m just so lost here." He snorted at the idea of holding these gods to more rigorous standards. They had already shown that they could actually appear in front of people, that was more than the Christian one had done so far, though that was his own line of thinking considering he was a bit of an atheist. Too much gloom and doom these days to make him think positively. He turned to face her, straightening up a bit. "I'm glad you got to be a chosen, and all of the others here too. It's just myself who doesn't really feel like I should be here." He grimaced a little. "I'm not so sure that I'm meant to be here. I really haven't been able to do much myself, I was barely there for the last battle against the mother bird and was barely there for Circe, though that was probably because I was an owl 80% of the time." He smiled a bit. "The only accomplishment I've felt so far after coming here was learning how to use a bow and arrow, and an old one at that since apparently we aren't using more updated ones." He sighed, leaning back a little. "I think I'm just very pessimistic though. I'm sorry if what I've said has hurt you in any way but... " He turned to smile at her. "I am glad that I met you here."
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