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 Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 6:05 pm
She'd only been in her new apartment for a couple days now, and it was... well... a bit awkward. The Microwave had up and imploded, she wasn't sure what box her Crock pot was in, only that it was not in the one it was supposed to be in... and just.. ugh. She had a new hot plate in the bag at her elbow, she was buying a new, used microwave as soon as possible, and right now, instead of eating another night's worth of Ramen, she was having dinner at a diner, reading her new copy of "Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner". She could almost taste the delicious, artery hardening fatty food, and it didn't help that she was starving, and had just found out that someone in one of her classes could, and would, steal any food that they spotted in your bag. Like bagels with cream cheese. ....Note to self. Change seats. Zip bag. Double check that there's enough tape for the audio recorder because it would be so horrible to run out of tape in the middle of class. It was almost relaxing, which was nice. Nice to drop her guard a fraction and not imagine something smashing through the plate glass window and attacking the diners. Normal, kind of. Normal was nice. This was a nice start. She could do this.
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Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 7:08 am
After hours was one of Noah's favorite times to be working in house. Most of the wait staff was either going hole or finishing up their shifts. Hos business partner checked out so he didn't have to babysit him. He could just work contentedly.
Which was probably for the best because he looked like crap. He had several visible bruises from his last fight and still walked with a slight limp from the fight before that. He hadn't bothered to shave or tighten up his appearance for the day today either.
He didn't take any of this into account when hauling a stack of dishes back to the kitchen and greeting a familiar face with "Oh, hey Holi," as casually as he would've greeted any other friend.
He circled back after accomplishing his mission and flopped in the seat across from her super casually and without introduction.
"What're you having? Oh, and," he stretched his arms over his head with a light groan. "I wanted to apologize for the other night if I seemed kind of irritable, I was in a shitty mood, sorry."
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Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 7:29 am
Holi froze in mid page turn, looking up sharply, her eyes as wide as they could be, as the strange, bruised, battered, and most importantly completely unfamiliar man sat down across from her, too surprised to even register details that might have given her some inkling of comfortable familiarity, like the color of his hair, or the faint traces of family similarity between himself and Zirconia's human side, Zia having similarly surprised Holi already. When he just... sat down, calling her by name and launching into conversation without so much as an introduction, she gaped, still frozen, mouth opening and shutting slightly in confusion until she could find her voice again, reaching slowly along the seat beside her to try and stealthily fetch the Ketchup bottle. It seemed more likely to be useful than her Page weapon. "....I.... I.... What?" She finally managed to squeak, blinking owlishly as her fingers wrapped around the base of the ketchup bottle. Her thoughts were racing, sifting too fast to match his face to familiar ones even if he'd been in her memory, and most of her concentration was on self preservation, hunger dropping into the bottomless pit of anxiety that had opened in her stomach. Other night? Touchy? Shitty mood? Was he one of the nega-agents? She'd seen one or two... how far did glamor go? ohgodwhatifitwasMimistrobell. That didn't even make sense, but she was terrified of the prospect anyway.
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Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 3:08 pm
At first Noah didn't think too much of the deer in the headlights reaction. Holi seemed clearly jumpy and nervous when they met in the street, so the fact she reacted in the same vein of demeanor didn't shock him. He just had her pegged as an anxious sort of person.
But when she reacted to his apology with a weird, sloth like approach for the condiments, that struck him as weird. He hadn't even gotten her any food yet! What was she even going to out it on? Psh.
"...It's me," He said slowly as if she didn't speak English. "You know? Alfheim. Hey, if you're that hungry I can take your order now and apologize later, you don't have to eat ketchup and sugar packets." So casual. And so oblivious.
And he just kept talking. "Not to brag but my burgers are ******** awesome, you should totally try one. Unless you're vegetarian I guess but uh... Huh, I dunno what we have that's vegetarian. Probably pies? I make pretty kick a** pies too. Hey, whatcha readin'?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 4:46 pm
Fortunately for both of them, the words 'It's Alfheim' sunk in before she got past starting to bring the bottle back for a threatening, swing ready posture, and awareness spread over her shocked, blank expression like a spring thaw over ice.
"A-Alfh...YOUDICK." She hissed much more loudly than she intended, flopping back heavily into her seat, almost shrinking from relief. "You scared me. I thought.... I mean... I didn't... GOD. did you even think about...you know..." She put the bottle down distractedly, where it promptly fell over and caused her to dive for it again as she finished, more quietly "...glamor?"
It was admittedly, a leap of faith to assume he wasn't lying, but that was one experience she had not yet been burned by. Her monsters came wearing black, or obvious shapes and had so far not attempted to become friends.
"...I don't know what I thought but it sure wasn't "Hey, I bet this random black and blue bludgeoned stranger is the guy who was with Zee the other night." She huffed, closing the book and turning it sharply to face him so that he could read the title himself, trying to make her jittering hand set the ketchup upright again and keep it there (which could have been going better,)
"...And I'm... I'm um. Starving. I just moved, but I don't have a stove. and the microwave broke.. so I bought a hotplate but... I mean that makes it sound like everything is a nightmare. It's not I'm just... Ugh. Ramen. You know? Burgers sound so good..."
She was aware she was rambling, the threads of conversation fraying into all directions, but she couldn't quite seem to help it right now.
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Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:04 pm
Now it was Noah's term to be Bambi. The second she hissed at him his brown eyes went wide and darted around frantically for a clue.
"Oh god, what? What'd I do?" He babbled out. He scared her? He didn't know how, but his knee jerk reaction was to apologize. "I'm sorry! Don't hit me! I mean--... what?"
Oh. Right, that glamor thing. He was so used to form shifts and everyone knowing who he was because of his sister's epic big mouth that he totally forgot that existed.
But when she rambled, she managed to stumble onto a problem he knew how to solve. "Wait here," He said, holding up his hands and rushing off. It was a few long minutes before he came back, milkshake and basket in hand. She was hungry? He at least knew how to feed people! It was what he was good at and besides, maybe it would make her want to hit him with a ketchup bottle less.
Once he finally pieced together that's what it was.
"Careful, the fries just came out of the fryer, it's the last batch of the night," He said, and you could tell he took a lot of pride in the creation he put on the table near her in a timid offering.
"And for your information, I'm black and blue because someone actually did wallop me so if you could avoid compounding it, that would be awesome."
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Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2013 10:30 am
Holi heaved another sigh when the plate of food slid onto the table in front of her, an entirely different kind of relief than before, and attempted to be subtle rubbing the corner of her mouth, because she was so hungry, and it smelled so good... "Sorry, I only almost walloped you because I had no idea who you were." She pointed out, gingerly taking a fry in her fingers and waving it to try and cool it off. "Ooh, hot. Oh god it smells so good.. HOT." Yes she had been warned but FOOD. "Here." She slid the book toward him slightly. "It's by the Cullinary Institute of America, it's all about how we're exploring new tastes in chocolate, like savory combinations, and chai, and pushing the boundaries of it... I thought it was kind of interesting because we're also kind of returning to it's roots. I mean we're so used to thinking of chocolate as sweet, but it's actually really bitter, and royals used to mix it with alchohol to make it taste more palitable... and the whole trend toward chocolate and hot peppers is a throw back... and... um." She trailed off, looked embarrassed and attempted to take a ladylike bite of fry, paused, and then stuffed the rest in after it, flapping her fingertips at her mouth because it was, frankly, really far too hot to have done that... but entirely worth it. "...Sogood."
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Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 5:51 am
"...Sorry," Noah mumbled and scratched at his unshaven face. "I had a tumble with a completely unreasonable dark mirror senshi. Was weird as ******** that, his only experiences were with Mimistrobell and Virtus, who both seemed like perfectly nice people.
He watched the sad plight of trying to get overly hot fries in her mouth and made an exaggerated face as if he could feel her pain.
"You're really into chocolate, huh?" He mused, glancing the book. "My experience is more with pastries, I guess. We do a Mexican chocolate pie here, but it's really more my business partner's specialty than mine. Iunno what the exact difference of Mexican chocolate is but," He rubbed his thumb on his fingertips as he tried to think of the right word. "S'got an interesting texture. It's fun to work with."
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Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 7:13 am
"I've been accused of being a bit obsessed." She admitted. "But I guess it's um... before the Surrounding it was as close as I thought that there was to magic in the world. My dad introduced me to it when I was younger... He brought back some from a famous store in Germany and I was just... hooked." She admitted. "Now it's kind of my connection to what things were like before. And your answer is in the composition, there's differences in how much cocoa, how much sugar if any.... all kinds of variables. I do best with sweet and filled chocolate, but I want to branch out..." She paused and looked around and added. "Your partner really makes a chocolate pie? Do they do it all here?" She was kind of now picturing if there was equipment here for making things from scratch, and getting ahead of herself a bit. "Honestly I have yet to meet a Dark Moon senshi who was reasonable. They didn't show up at the surrounding because they wanted to borrow a cup of ancient space sugar..."
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Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 5:19 am
Noah just listened dutifully, nodding his head when appropriate, but when she asked if they seriously make pie here, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder to a desert case at the end of the counter. "We do a lot of stuff here," And then pointed the the roll her burger had been constructed with. "We bake our own bread too."
He didn't notice he was maybe derailing the conversation considering she had just opened up and shared something personal and then segued into the Dark Mirror Court and the Surrounding and these were both very serious things he had no business sandwiching his pride about delicious baked goods between.
"Well I wasn't awakened for the Surrounding," He admitted with some embarrassment. "I guess I don't know too much about it... But I've met Mimistrobell and Virtus, ad they're both Dark Mirror senshi, and they're both pretty nice! They were both at least willing to talk things out... Mimi ended up running off when Zia insisted on constantly barking insults at her, though."
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Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 7:20 am
Holi's whistful look shattered on the spot and she stopped dead, with frenchfries clutched too firmly in her fingers to try and hide the shudder that had run through her entire frame. "...Mimistrobell?" She knew that name all to well. "Mimistrobell is Dark Mirror Court." She pointed out, even though he'd just said the same. "They're evil. They're murderous and twisted! She tried to strangle me because I wouldn't let her steal my energy!" How anyone could be taken in by such a horrifying group was beyond her, and she was suddenly torn between twists of hunger and nausea. How could he talk about them so lightly? Like they were harmless? How could he not know?? "T-they're... they're..." She couldn't even finish, and had to put the slightly crushed fries down on her plate again while she tried to recover from the memory. A wall of dark energy, sneering faces, dark senshi and Negaverse agents standing shoulder to shoulder, and he was... ugh. It was irrational to blame him for not knowing about something he hadn't been there for, but how could he be near them without his skin crawling from their aura?
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Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:43 am
Well this was awkward.
Noah was painfully optimistic about the nature of people, even after 38 years of being alive and interacting with them on a regular basis, he still had trouble accepting concepts like misrepresentation and manipulation.
From his point of view, Mimi had seemed very sweet and somewhat innocent which he was willing to believe fully because she was so young. So seeing someone else he desperately wanted to stay innocent and safe flip out about an incident with strangling and energy stealing was pretty awkward and unsettling.
So so so so awkward.
His eyes were wide and he stared at her back to looking like a deer in the headlights before his vision flicked to the side and back again.
"I... uh..."
He decided 'sorry for your strangling' was not a very good thing to attempt to make it better with. He didn't know how to alleviate the awkward at all so he just reached over and stole a few of her fries to stuff in his mouth so he at least had an excuse not to talk.
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Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:56 am
Holi stared at him intensely while he ate the fries, letting him writhe in silence under the intensity of her still accusing stare, which wasn't helped by her pale complexion and dark eyes, which, when made paler by anxiety, helped make her look even more like something from a horror film. Some sort of undead doll or something perhaps. "...Oh my god you actually like her don't you?" She accused, crisply, taking the edge of her plate between her finger tips and sliding it slightly further away from him. Get your own fries you... you.... Mimistrobell-liker-you. "Zia is right not to like her you know." She followed, tone shifting to lecture him like a child who doesn't know any better, in spite of being considerably younger than he was. "These are the same people who stood shoulder to shoulder with the Negaverse and their monsters at the surrounding and went out of their way to slaughter civilians. And laugh about it. They're nice like a cup of coco with a shot of Arsenic."
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Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:32 pm
Noah did writhe. He writhed so hard and-- hey, he made those fries!
But the fries were not important. He wasn't hungry he just wanted an excuse not have to talk. Without them, things definitely felt more awkward.
He eventually cringed and just said it. "She's just a kid, Holi... Just like you are too. I know what Chaos does to a person, and I know the corrupted factions are dangerous because of it, but... You're all just kids."
Was it a crime to have a little compassion? Geez. But he did hold up his hands defensively. "Not that I'm defending their actions, I just think if someone's willing to talk it wouldn't be so terrible to hear them out. Like I said, I wasn't at the Surrounding... so... I guess... I just think there's still a little humanity in there somewhere."
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Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:55 pm
"...Tell... no... implying that I should forgive her, or any of them, because we're 'just kids', and thank you, I'm legally an adult...is defending their actions." She picked her words carefully, trying to keep her tone level. "That's the same phrase people when they say "Well they didn't mean to do those horrible things to that girl, they were just being boys... they were drunk... it was Chaos..." She stopped again, raising her eyebrows slightly and pressing her palms flat against the table. "You see where I'm going with this?" She wanted to scream at him, to claw at him, to hit him with her book, she wanted to do all of these things and run into the night, but she had to... HAD to make him understand, and the artificial calm felt like she was tapping into something older and deeper than Holiday Jones. "...If there is humanity in them, that's... I think that's actually worse, because then they're doing all of these things, and they know it. A youma is... a youma isn't a person. You can at least say 'it's a giant, hungry starved thing and it's just doing what it was made to do', but if there's actually a shred of humanity, and they're still going out at night, stealing peoples life force, their starseeds, and crushing civilians who are kidnapped and frightened and light-years from home because they happened to be in their way... if they are at all human and they can still do that, than I don't think I have anything to talk about with them." Her hands pressed harder and harder against the table top as she spoke, the soft, gentle tones gradually beginning to vibrate like a bell... then waver and crack as her fingers drew slowly back into anxious claws that made small 'tik' noises as her fingernails scraped against the tabletop, looking for purchase on the here and now. "...I was a child when I went to the surrounding. They took that away from me, not Chronos."
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