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Friendly Conversationalist
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 Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 8:57 pm
Alberto shook his head as he emerged from the door into the fresh air of the gardens. With how much he enjoyed being outside, he was honestly surprised at himself. He had been at LOTUS a long time but had never seemed to find time to explore the gardens. The thought had hovered on the backburner for a while while he was often consumed in the library, pouring over books in order to find out what exactly had happened in his country when he had come here.
What had happened to his father and the others during all the fighting.. were they mentioned at all, or just part of the faceless crowd? It was likely they were not people of note, but he still felt compelled to look.. just to be sure.
But the days had left him feeling burnt out and in desperate need of a breeze on his face rather than the stale air of a reading room. He was glad he'd finally made it out to the gardens, and as his eyes wandered casually over the bushes and shrubs that lined the pathway, he was rather impressed. The vegetation certainly looked drier here (due to the high atmosphere, he figured), and most of them he had never seen before, other than in books. In his native Nicaragua, he was used to the lush tropic plants that sprung up around his city and stretched over the soft hills that grew away from the slope towards the sea..
But that was in the past. He thought a lot on the past these days, but he didn't let him drag him down (outside of his latent curiosity on his father's fate). He had a job to do here, and God only knew what his real reason for being here in the first place was.
What he needed right now was a companion to distract him. As far as he could make out, the gardens were deserted and quiet. What kind of companion though? He pressed down the path and whistled cheerfully.
A woman would certainly be nice. He cracked a grin - old habits die hard, and he hadn't flirted with a while. He wanted to test his luck again - see if the old Alberto inside still had it in him to charm a woman. In all actuality he wasn't feeling too terribly picky about who would grace him with their presence.
So long as they weren't terribly boring.
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Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:07 pm
The feeling about wanting to be outside in the fresh air, even for a little bit, was not lost on Einar as the Norwegian youth found himself leaning against a tree and just taking in the weird smells that accompanied the odd seasons here. It wasn't like home, which smelt of ash, soot, and political sadness with some oppression, so that was something of a relief.
The little wisps of wind that came blowing about cooled his face as they passed, ruffling his hair and sending small shivers down his spine. It felt wonderful, mood lifting even, and the man set about finding other wise to raise his spirits.
A song would do, any type of song at all, so he picked an old English tune that he'd heard once when they had a prisoner exchange at the camp. It was a little campy itself( no pun intended) as it made him sing at a higher range than normal, and Einar recalled that while he was singing this song the prisoners often joked that he sounded like a woman doing an aria.
"Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. . . "
He continued to sing on, enjoying himself.
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Friendly Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:17 am
Alberto stalled on the path and closed his eyes, taking in the warmth of the weather. He let his arms stretch out and his cool facade melt away into an uncharacteristically lazy look. What was it about the outdoors that always put him at ease? Perhaps it was the desire to let responsibilities slip away and how one could feel so free in this environment.. that seemed reason enough for him.
As he paused in thought, his ears caught a strain of a rather delightful sound. It was human, certainly.. a song. One he had never heard before, but he recognized the English words strung together. What to be said of the voice though? He almost couldn't pick out the gender because of the tone, but whatever it was.. it was enticing.
His feet carried him towards the sound, all the while puzzling over who could be singing. He wasn't very familiar with the other inhabitants of his compound yet..
Alberto rounded the smooth corner the path took and found the source. A tall blonde man was leaning casually under the shade of a tree, letting his song fly from his lips freely. Alberto was surprised.
That voice.. from this man? It doesn't quite fit. He folded his arms across his chest as he approached and wondered if he should say anything at all. Singing is a private matter to some people, and perhaps his intrusion wouldn't be entirely welcome.
However he was singing in a public place, so Alberto had every right to butt in if he wanted to.
"Hey," he started with, raising an eyebrow. "What are you singin' there?"
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Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:04 pm
"-true love of mine."
Einar stopped the song as soon as a voice greeted him, a male voice that was unfamiliar even by his standards, using an accent that only lightened a few words here and there. Not enough to actually call it something, perhaps, but Einar was keen to listen closely. Knowing a voice could mean all the difference between enemy and ally, an often tragic mistake, though here he didn't have a need for such skill or knowledge.
Still, old habits died hard, and Einar didn't like letting things die if he could help it.
"Old English song, learned it from some friends at camp when I was back home. Not bad considering English is my native language, but not too good. My accent makes me sing like a woman."
At least he would admit it. Einar had no idea who this person was, or what they were doing here (obviously what the rest of them were doing while at LOTUS), but he chatted away like he had no care in the world. His time with Lai earlier had seen to his mood change, of course.
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Friendly Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:06 am
Alberto raised an eyebrow at the stranger's light, easygoing tone. "Yeah, it kinda does," he said bluntly with the ghost of a smirk on his lips. He leaned to one side and crossed his arms as he looked his new companion up and down. Interesting choice of dress, but that didn't let him effect his overall opinion.
Alberto rested himself against an adjacent tree and looked up through the branches. The sun was warm on his face as it filtered through the branches. A gentle breeze blew past and rustled the leaves overhead, sending a few to the ground.
"I liked it though.. the song." His eyes looked over at the stranger. "Wasn't bad." And it wasn't, except for the fact that it did make him sound like a woman. Alberto found that a little weird. But something about it struck a chord with him.. it made him remember faces. But they were long dead by now.
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 5:35 pm
"Ouch, you didn't have to agree with me. You could have at least pretended to lie to suit my ego, though I'll take your compliment none the less."
A grin spread across Einar's face, his mouth splitting slightly at the corners and causing his who appearance to morph ever so slightly. The patch he wore on his eye seemed to shift upwards with his expression, though it remained in place, but his eyebrow seemed to keep stationary amidst his blond bangs. His good eye looked over at the man who was making himself comfortable, and slowly he began to speak again.
"I'm not too fond of that song actually, since it's from a place I've never seen nor do I really want to see. Where I'm from we stick to what we know, it's generally safer, but as a result we don't get to experience anything new. It's almost like the idea to travel and try something different is slowly being bred out of us with each passing generation."
That wasn't really true, but it wasn't really a lie either. Einar loved to explore, so did several of the people he knew, but they were a small minority against the thousands who swore up and down to never leave their homeland. That is, until they were forced to.
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Friendly Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:14 pm
There was something about the man's grin, grouped with his tone and the slightly heavier words he spoke, that struck a chord with Alberto. This was a feeling he was familiar with, that reluctance to leave one's homeland. His family had been of the same stock. He remembered dinner table discussions between his mother and father that he'd just happen to overhear, where his mother was adamant about remaining at home, that the threat of war would never come to their door.. how sad that it wasn't war that took her from their home.
"What a borin' way to live." He had to be honest about it. Something about the way the man spoke told him that he wasn't quite being upfront about his own thoughts on the matter (Alberto was pretty good at picking apart subtle lies, or half lies as it were - being a bit of a liar at times himself). "Stayin' in the same place... couldn't do it." He shook his head. Ever since he was a boy, the itch to explore and travel clung fast to him, growing every time he heard a new story or found an unused path as he played with the other village boys in the rainforest.
"Understandable, though. Times are dangerous in some places, I guess." He didn't really know where (or when, as the case was) this man came from, but he couldn't assume that it wasn't dangerous. "What kind 'a problems that stop people from wantin' to see other places." He kept his gaze on the glimmers of blue between the swaying branches before he turned towards his companion, the smirk that had been lingering on his lips now spreading and one eyebrow raised in question. "What d'you guys do for fun then?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 8:28 am
"For fun? War."
Einar's answer was quick and short, no trace of the usual lying or humor in it that he'd been using only moments before when speaking with this strange man. The grin he wore had faded quickly and turned to a soured look of memory, his eye cast downward at his shoes that kicked at tufts of grass.
It was true, war basically was all anyone did once they got older. The draft really didn't let anyone go, even people physically disabled in the same way he was; even people with questionable states of mental health were allowed in. Hell, those people usually were invited and promoted.
"If I could, I would have stayed with the boring and uneventful. At least then you knew you weren't going out and doing things you'd later come to have nightmares about. I guess the only bright side to all of it is we did indeed travel, all over the place, and it was mostly by foot. You'd be surprised how much land the human body can cover in a single day when you're running non-stop."
Which Einar had never had to do. He'd heard stories about all the running the ground units had to do, the letters he would get testifying about distances and locations, but the platoon he'd been assigned to usually flew around or took cars. He hadn't been part of the meat shield sect.
"But you said you can't stay in one place for too long either? Did you like to explore, or just got too bored to easily?"
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Friendly Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:33 am
Despite the gravity of the man's words, Alberto couldn't argue them. War was all that people seemed to do. Disagree, fight, then kill each other over conflicting opinions. How times do change as one ages! The uneventful, although boring, had to have been heaven compared to killing.
The sudden change in his demeanor spoke volumes about his companion's war experiences, mostly because the Nicaraguan man knew similar ones. Days spent in the jungle, marching through muggy heat and swampy terrain, crossing rivers, hiding, fighting.. it all blurred together in the end, but it wasn't an easy life. Not by any means.
"It was the same for us. At times running, other times hiding... a lot of waitin' though. Lot of sickness and death. Really messes y' up, y'know?" Alberto crossed his arms as he gave the words some thought. "Y' do funny things in the name of your country, or your own convictions or somethin'. At the time I was proud of what I was doin', but then again.. time changes a lot of things. Don't necessarily regret it, but I don't like talkin' about it too much either."
As the subject became lighter again, he laughed. This man was good at changing moods very quickly! At least it kept the conversation fresh.
"Ahh, mostly when I was a kid." He grinned and scratched an itch just behind his ear. "We were all over the place, and I liked to stick around sometimes after everyone else went home. Then the boys'd come back and I'd show 'em somewhere new. We went swimmin' in the river a lot, hiked into the mountains, climbed a lot of trees." He laughed a little at a memory of getting stuck in one particular tree of notable size when he was around seven, and how angry his father had been (even if it was only masking the relief he felt when they finally got him down). "I guess it was 'cause there wasn't a lot to do. But climbing trees never gets old to me." As he said as much, he reached up into the branches of the tree he was leaning against and grasped a thick one between his fingers.
The temptation was strong. Why not?
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Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 10:19 am
Einar half-listened to Alberto, instead choosing to watch his actions, and as he witnessed the man grab a thick branch he paused for a moment before he opened his mouth to speak again.
"If you want to climb a tree, there's one near the back that's a bit better for climbing. All of the ones where look pretty strong but in reality have weak trunks and would probably snap if we gave it a shot."
He knew about the larger trees, as the monkey in him often forced Einar into the seclusion of the canopy, so he knew that the trees near the front were better suited for decoration and would most certainly not support the weight of two grown men.
"Follow me if you want to climb, and be prepared to race. When it comes to trees, I won't lose."
There was a teasing hint of challenge in his voice, and Einar moved from where he'd been standing out into the grass. He took a few steps away from the common trail and headed towards the thicker areas, glancing over his shoulder before he really moved to see if Alberto would follow.
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Friendly Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 11:10 am
"Eh?" At Einar's advice, Alberto let the branch slide from his fingers. It gave a little bit of a wobble as it sprang back up, a few of the leaves shaking gently. In seeing that, he knew the Norwegian was probably right - seems like he'd done this quite often before.
"I suppose you're the expert here." He grinned as he caught the hint of a challenge in his new friend's voice. "But we'll see about that." When Einar had started off down the path, Alberto followed very close behind. Whether or not he was good at something, he couldn't turn down a friendly challenge. He felt an excited vigor at the thought of climbing trees again.. how long had it been since he did it for fun? There had been times when it was needed during his missions with the forces but just for sport.. needless to say there was a childlike excitement at the idea.
As they moved, the trees became larger and thicker around the base. Alberto noted to himself that Einar must know this area pretty well. His hand strayed to knock on one of the nearby trees, and in doing so noticed the bark wasn't as spongy and the wood put up a little more resistance. Looks like they were getting close.
"That it?" He nodded towards one ahead of them that seemed bigger than the rest. The branches spread wide into the open sky, growing thick, full leaves. The base of the tree was probably the biggest of the ones he'd seen. If he had to bet, this one could probably hold five of them without an issue.
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