Welcome to Gaia! ::

He didn't feel up to diving for runes, today, but Leslie was at the beach anyway. The sun was out in full force, not a cloud to be seen. It didn't really bother him, though: Aleria kept him slightly below comfortable at all times anyway, no matter the weather.

With his shoes off, and the only titan ages off in the distance at sea, Leslie let himself stick his legs in the water, the cuffs rolled up. He idly smoked and drank, alternating between cigarette and flask. It was...quiet.

But not for long.

Leslie turned a baleful eye upwards, grin going crooked. "Nah," he said, gesturing out there. "The big one's out there, and that means the littler ones are keeping the ******** away, for at least a little while."

Or so he thought, anyway. He kept a watchful eye on the murky water anyway, ready to summon at a moment's notice.

He took a long drag, exhaling the words: "What happened to your hair? You look like a dyke."

"Meh," Leslie said. "It's all right." He didn't really mean anything by it; young and stupid and bigoted, sure. Malicious? Sometimes. ...Often. But not in this case.

He waved her over with a raise of his flask. "It's rum and I didn't pay for it, if you want any."

The laugh came out sudden and bitten off, and he looked almost bewildered that it had come out of him. "Fair ******** enough." No one had taken advantage of his hair on the battlefield-- yet, anyway.

He settled into the sand, at ease. Claude knew where he stood, and she agreed. It didn't mean he trusted her, but they had, well. Some common ground.

"Agreed," Leslie said with a decisive nod. "Easiest to do off island and s**t. Less cameras."

Leslie moved to hand it over, changed his mind, took another drink and then finally-- finally!-- bequeathed it unto Claude. It was Kraken; spiced and the kind that warmed you nicely. Definitely not top shelf, though. (He couldn't reach.)

"What? Like, I dunno. An hour?" He looked at her blankly for a few seconds before it clicked. "OH. oh. Uh, s**t. A year and change now, I guess. Christ. What a year."

He took a sip himself, sighing again.

"Yeah and a bunch of other terrible s**t. You go on any terrible ******** missions yet?"

He snorted. "I've missed half of them, from what I hear. We were stuck inside a ********. I don't know. A video game, once. Alice in ******** Wonder ******** Land. But it wasn't something you could leave, like. Just. Days and days and days and weeks of the same s**t. Quests to do. No way to go home. And they-- whatever they were, I'm not too ******** sure-- wanted to replace who we are with a perfect little ******** copy. Or something. I think it ended up...being a dream, because what else could that s**t be? While we were asleep, two weeks of s**t happened overnight, just like that."

Leslie stubbed out his cigarette, and lit another. "And then there was this-- this horseman. Thing. And a tower. And I think some bigwig died, like some big power? We had-- there was this. Vision. Thing. You had to go through a door, and I got this vision. Of what I'd be like, if I lived forever, what s**t that would twist me into something more."

Grief. The door had been for Grief, and he had been an Avatar of Woe.

"Really, though. I don't ever know what the ******** goes on here. It's all kinda weird."