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It was All-One that told Quartz about the lone senshi, perhaps finished his patrol, that had decided to take a break on a bench and have a drink. It was always All-One, after all: Quartz preferred to find safe, obscure nooks and crannies to tuck himself away into, and let the youma do the patrolling. Safer that way -- more discreet. It gave Quartz a fair bit more control over his encounters than he might otherwise have. Unexpected run-ins with Camlann (no, with Melanite, he corrected himself, digging a sliver of fear out from between his ribs) were about as much unwanted serendipity as he preferred to court.

That had been the whole point of choosing All-One, after all. The whole advantage. It gave him a measure of control in an uncontrollable world. A measure of safety in an unsafe city.

Now, he listened attentively to All-One's directions as he followed them. Time for a chat, he hoped.

"What kind of a drink?" he asked All-One as he went.

Quartz wasn't sure it was possible for a swarm of bees to shrug, per se -- but if it were, he supposed that All-One might've done that now. As it was, the swarm simply spoke. Without inflection, it was hard to tell when it was irritated . . . but sometimes the idea got across even so.

"Yellow," it said. "How -- should -- we know?" it said. "But," it said, and Quartz raised a silent eyebrow in question, waiting, "whatever it is -- there are -- six -- bottles -- of it."

Quartz offered a wry chuckle. "That narrows it down," he said with a snort.
His kind of person, then: drinking on the job. Promising, perhaps.

"If you say so," All-One answered him in some woman's dubious, recorded voice.

He left All-One scattered, as he approached, keeping mostly safe distances from the area. A single insect lurked beneath the fall of his hair, perched behind his ear, to pass on any potential warnings from the rest of the swarm and, as ever, to record the minutiae of this conversation.

Quartz approached slowly, hands open at his sides, so as not to cause any alarm. He chose a careful smile for the occasion, something meant to be ingratiating but not pushy: warm but apologetic, close-lipped and cautious. "Forgive the intrusion," he said, stopping at a safe distance. "I only want to talk. Captain Quartz," he offered his own name.

"Aue," Quartz repeated carefully. How do you spell that? he wondered. It would be a delightful scrap of Wikipedia research later, he was sure -- looking for a celestial body apparently named 'oh' and figuring out how it was actually spelled. Well, he'd manage it.

He came closer, plucking on of the as-yet-unopened bottles from the carton and wrapping one of his sashes around it so he could twist the cap off with his hand. It came free, and he took a long swig just before seating himself on the far side of the bench.

"Thanks," he said, companionable in the way of two people who seemed equally disinterested in summoning up cheer, but equally interested in drinking. He'd keep it casual. "Not everyone's so chill. You been at this gig a while?"

Further exposure revealed a decided accent. Something in the European families of languages -- something Scandinavian, though Quartz, being no expert in the vagueries of the Northern tongues, couldn't particularly distinguish which. No matter -- a foreign import of some kind. He'd put 'of Scandinavian extraction' in the file and let someone else figure out the details. Maybe that big, Norse mountain of a Spec Ops officer.

"Just over a year," he agreed, kicking back another small swig of the beer. It wasn't that he was in the habit of nursing his drinks -- rather, that it would drag out the conversation a bit, give him more time to get his foot in the door.

"I have no quarrel with you, either. I'm not on this side by choice. Not that anyone's really on their side by choice, from one perspective, but -- it's just better to stay on whatever side you're on as long as you can. Being dragged over is hell. You lose more than just your name."

Quartz shook his head in a vague 'no.' "I wasn't on any side before -- it was just me. I didn't know any other knights or sailor soldiers, it wasn't me doing buddy-buddy team stuff -- just me trying not to get eaten by monsters, or let other people get eaten by monsters. Nothing glamorous about it. It's just that it was my life, you know? And now it's gone."

He looked askance at Aue, with a grim but sharp smile. Quartz wondered who he'd been talking to, who'd been giving him the 'better in black' spiel. Cinnabar? Xenotime? Clearly he'd been dealing with one of the many officers who gambled on half-information, who relied on tricking people they hoped to recruit by not telling them what they were getting in for.

It was a poor way to establish trust. It was the sort of tactic for people who didn't think in the long term, didn't think ahead to imagine how their dishonesty would impact a relationship down the road. It wasn't how Quartz operated.

"You've been chatting with people who haven't been completely forthcoming with you, then. Careful dealing with anyone who wants to sell you something without telling you what they get in return -- they'll ******** you over every time. Anyway -- what you get in exchange for changing sides, by choice or not, is your mind ripped apart. I can only remember about two hours worth of time from my entire life before I was changed over: only the time I spent powered up. My real life -- who I am, who I was -- it's gone. A big, gaping hole."

A reason to drink. He sat back, leaving the subject of his commanding officer curiously untouched.

Quartz blinked, raising both eyebrows in faint but unfeigned surprise. "If this General of yours has been giving you any kind of protection, other than from himself, let's just say there hasn't been a memo -- and months is enough time to file the paperwork."

He had a suspicion that Aue was being used to fuel someone's ambition, and not in the way that might best serve the Negaverse. If that was true, it meant there was an opportunity here for Quartz to offer Aue more than what he was currently getting.

"What General are you working with?"

Hunh. Labyrinthite. Quartz had never exactly met the man, so what little he knew of him was from his file and from occasional gossip about him. He was one of the snarling brutes of Spec Ops, generally -- particularly violent, potentially unhinged -- and a soldier in the Negaverse of very long standing.

He was not in the Intelligence Branch. He wasn't exactly known for his soft, sophisticated touch when it came to dealings with the sailor soldiers.

This was turning over a very new leaf, from what little Quartz knew. Perhaps the man had ambitions.

"We're not exactly close associates," Quartz led off, "but you've gotten yourself into some real s**t getting involved with him, from what little I know. He's supposedly a nasty piece of work. Listen -- you should probably keep whatever arrangement you have with him, for your own sake." Quartz sighed and set down his empty bottle. "But if you want protection in general . . . I work for the Intelligence branch. Help me do what I have to do to cover my own a**, and I can get you some real guarantees of safety."

He stood.

"Don't answer now. Give it some thought. If you want to talk again -- find a piece of chalk and write my name on a brick wall somewhere. I'll find you."

A smile, dry but honest. "Thanks for the beer. I'll get the next one."