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Lilian Rook     Lilian has never been inside of a McDonalds, let alone a WcDonalds. She's fairly certain that she's never been within half a mile of one either, with the only nagging doubt in her mind about that one being that godawful road trip. She had intended to spend her entire life never venturing near that garish sign; that glowing icon of lower class exhaustion and quiet desperation writ in lurid red and yellow. The prospect is offensive to her sensibilities. The idea of it is frightening for being acid poured on the faded class solidarity engraved on her ideological bones since childhood. On a subconscious level she would never dare articulate, Lilian fears that voluntarily entering a McDonalds might permanently erase some small facet of her identity.

    That's how bad the mission was.

    Never mind that she came here like a harried mom trying to get two stupid teenaged boys to shut up and stop asking questions. Never mind that she came here with Calvin Nash acting like their equally sick and tired stepdad, or Flamel Parsons like his kooky work friend who invited himself, or even that she is introducing a respectable doctor to the Paladins like this, like her work-friend who simply has to bear her end-of-day charnel march towards alcohol and bed. The part that really makes Lilian feel the full weight of just how desperate she was to be anywhere but 'there', even here, is that she didn't even say no to Schneider Greco of Manus Vindictae, whose role she can only interpret in this nightmare-trip comedown arrangement as the girl at the resort bar who was told 'we liked you vibe'.

    Completely spent from the martial dispute and not the fighting, Lilian corrects her phone from M to W no less than six times, and scowls on each occasion. She flashes her badge along with a 'don't fuck with me' face at every checkpoint, pays the only toll with a perfunctory slap of her tap card, and stares at a parked car by the side of the road with the expression of someone deeply considering stealing it rather than walking the frankly disappointingly short distance between a travel hub and a Mc-WcDonalds.

    Attempting to at least maintain a sliver of dignity in the fact this was her suggestion, Lilian pushes the door open first, holding it open for the others and exhaling what she imagines is a small fragment of her lifespan in the weary exhale she lets go on hearing that cheery electronic jingle.
Lilian Rook     The inside is a McDonalds. One of the nice ones that people less white than her get to have, with a clean floor, extended menus, silly little mascot standers, promo posters up everywhere, and pretentions to family restaurant seating, but a McDonalds all the same. Just with the M flipped upside down, much like Lilian's entire concept of where the line between 'the world of Elites' and 'everything to do with real life' started and ended.

    After only a brief discussion with Petra, amounting to a shrill screaming venting session behind a Warpgate terminal building corner, she's come around to exhaustedly hoping that everything that just happened was a cynical manipulation tactic on Meresankh's part, because at least that would leave the line intact.

    It's not busy, but not empty either. It's the precise amount of full that leaves people turning to look by the twos and threes at their table at the completely fucking outrageous group of people shambling in. 'Elite stuff' may be something on the television and internet, with the Paladins, especially, being a familiar concept here on the metaphorical border of proto-Commonwealth national space, but the moment everything inside goes quiet, you can tell that you're too many, too tightly packed, too much all at once. You can see a burning question about cosplay ignite in the till operator's eyes and die on her lips.

    "Just get whatever." Lilian sighs, fishing out her credit card again. "I'm getting a corner booth." Her eyes slide in the direction of someone reaching for their smartphone, and her pissed off glare makes them flinch away again.
Flamel Parsons     Flamel Parsons staggers in as well, still Mentally Healthy and still horribly drained. Staring. He is horribly drained, looking at the door blankly with a bland smile.

    He is horribly drained, looking (blankly, and with a bland smile) at a plastic and resin Bonald WcDonald stander, eye to eye, as if he were going to engage the construct in conversation.

    He is horribly drained, examining the menu behind the cashier, with a blank expression and a bland smile yet still. He is being silent for several long seconds, while the cashier asks if he's decided on his order three, now four times.

    He is horribly drained, still regarding, yet blanker, and smiling, yet blander, at the spot where the fries and burger will soon exist. It's polite to wait, you know, at a distance, but he's seemingly lost some of the key psychological focus capacity to do that.

    He is horribly drained, and sitting, staring at food. One of the inner seats of the corner booth. Blank expression? Yes. Bland smile? You betcha.

    He picks up a single fry and looks at it, taking in every little detail intensely. The universe is contained within this fry. The subtle folds, the crease where it has gone slightly limp and the white of the potato seeps through just a tiny amount, the contours of the individual granules of salt. The way it wobbles when he pinches it just a bit too hard, and the way it flops over when the soft section left in the middle of two harder sections finally gives way. He is expanding his consciousness through the entirety of human experience as he knows it, allowing the cosmic truths representing the totality of qualia as a concept to surge through him. He did that last week and it went horribly, but when he does that now it just makes him stare at a fry for thirty seconds silently.

    "Hey." He's still staring at it. "Was that 'homophobia'? Back there?"
Riku Asakura Riku has never been to a WcDonald's before, either, only a McDonald's.  Though if they have similar enough food, he probably won't be missing much.  He walks in behind Lilian, who is holding the door and is currently wearing a jean jacket with an orange shirt featuring a space logo, jeans, and tennis shoes.  

Right now, his face isn't wearing his normal smile, and he is still worried about Meresankh and her wife.  It seemed like it didn't go well, especially at the end, with the barge offer instead of being allowed to stay on the planet side.  Overall, it was a bitter ending to such a good start to a mission.  

'Just get whatever.'

"Oh, um, sure..." he says to Lilian and gets himself a burger with fries and a side of chicken nuggets.  It's pretty similar to McDonald's, but the M is just flipped into a W, it looks like.  He wonders if this is the same as most fast food places that come from Shiro's world.  He gets his food and sits down at the booth that Lilian had picked out.  

"Aren't you going to get anything?" he boldly asks Lilian.

'Was that 'homophobia'? Back there?'

Riku has no idea how to answer this question.  
Schneider Greco      The girl who wears the name of 'Schneider Greco' excuses herself at the travel hub, is separated from the group for seven minutes, and jogs to just barely be the last one in as Lilian holds the door.

     She has spent none of that seven minutes to freshen up. There is still a thin dribble of dried blood down the inside of one thigh to the ankle. Her bangs are still slightly bedraggled with sweat.

     She has spent it instead to fill both her arms with brown paper bags that clink and slosh with a cornucopia of alcohol.

     "Thank you, my-la-dy Rook," she purrs on her way in, brushing shoulder-to-chest; and then thunk-clink-clatters her double-armful of barely-disguised booze down on a small square table and screeeeech-shoves it to adjoin with a corner booth. Bonus seating!

     "And," swooping back towards the counter and cutting rudely in line in a way that makes it impossible to tell whether she even knows she's being rude, "what is it you rec-com-mend, my-la-dy?" As if Lilian's ever been here before.

     "Mmmh, burgers... and malted shakes... oh, and a lit-tle ro-bot soda fountain..." Her elbows rest on the counter. Her eyes drift down from the menu to the hapless cashier, and she smiles like a predator, and her upper arms press her nonexistent cleavage sorta together while not really hiding the oversized handguns at her waist.

     "What are these fries-of-france, my-la-dy accountant? Do you think they suit my taste?"
Trudy Grimm     Fortunately for Basically Everyone, Trudy had dismissed her 'cute friends' some time during the various jaunts between warp gates. The last thing anyone wants is even more attention drawn to such an eclectic collection of people that would result from a dozen skeletons, or a giant knight in armor, shambling up to a fast food restaurant. At least she's accustomed to feeling out of place herself, and so the witch's entry into the building is performed with just a hint of exuberance and a wide shark-toothed smile.

    "My, the feasting halls of the 'modern' era certainly aren't much to look at, are they?"

    It's said with that smile but also with an appraising glint in those faintly glowing green eyes. She lifts a hand, tapping her lips and cheek with spread out fingers, "Oh, well," She flicks that same hand upward, fingers extended in a dismissive gesture to those patrons who are still staring, "Back to your drinking and songs, now."

    It hasn't occurred to her that, no, people do not sing drinking songs at McDonald's, or any off-brand variations of it.

> "Just get whatever."

    "Thank you, Lilian,"

    Schneider provides unlabeled bottles of bootleg liquor, and it is this that the witch decides to inspect more closely while the conversing and menu-questioning takes place, "Oh ho, what has our young guest brought? Miss Schneider, shall I carve you a charm for your generosity? What manner of blessings appeal to you?"
Lissandra      Lissandra, to her credit, manages to smile her way through the walk like nothing at all had happened today to be concerned about. Only after they're out of the tomb-palace-catacomb-whatever-it-was, but still. The premise of this little escape plan amuses her on some level too... Contrasting with Lilian's emanating sense of held-in distress, at times it could almost feel like she's trying to tease her without saying a word. Not on purpose, but sometimes that's just how it comes across when one has to sponge the stress of the day with smiles and pleasantry.

     She does unbutton her nice jacket though, and comes moments from shucking it off her shoulders before deciding against it as she steps through the door Lilian has held open. "Mm, thank you." The obvious notice they get from the other customers prompts her fingers to flex a little in consideration, looking between Lilian and the person who reached for their phone, then turning toward the worker at the till. "I will have..." She pauses. She doesn't want to eat very much, but it'd be strange to just sit there with nothing while the others do. She also hates the mouthfeel of the words 'chicken nugget'. "The number three. And lemonade. Small, thank you."

     She's content to sit and wait, as well as to pick up her own tray from the counter when it's ready, but in the meantime she spends a fair while scrutinizing Flamel. It's only once his question finally excapes him that she lets out a sigh that one might normally hear from a parent about to explain that their child's pet didn't actually go to a farm upstate. "The kind that most would only see in fiction, and more than that besides." Her hand made its way to his shoulder at some point, in what might be an attempt at sympathy?

     Schneider's alco-haul prompts a slightly baffled double-blink that slides into a very slightly guilty smirk, and a Sensible Headshake:tm: as if she's disavowing the behavior even as she's already convincing herself to tip one of the bags toward herself to peruse the selection. "Goodness, you took the assignment seriously didn't you?" Somehow, saying that aloud reminds her of the visible state Schneider is in, which consequently has Lissandra double-checking her own state. She's still pretty clean, since she didn't get into the fray earlier, but that just means she has more time to spare on scrutinizing Schneider. "... Here, at least wipe your face before you eat? And wash your hands while you're at it, they don't make most of this food to be eaten with utensils, and you don't need any of that getting in your food." She's already pulling a washcloth out of her bag with one hand, while the other brandishes two chicken nuggies between her knuckles like throwing knives.
Lilian Rook     'Aren't you going to get anything?'

    Standing not far from the door, in the quantum superposition between 'in the line' and 'impatiently waiting for an impudent child to order their cringe-slop', Lilian dissociates for three more seconds after hearing those words before finally rousing herself to reality by incidentally blinking. She looks in Riku's direction, looks slowly back up at the menu, and says "I'm paying, remember? So I'll order mine last."

    God she hates that she's paying for this. She wishes she could un-pay. She wishes she could charge negative credits to her account. These people should be paying for the privilege of breathing her oxygen. She feels ridiculous. She was wearing her armour on that mission, because why wouldn't she be? Now taking it off had left her in the flirty little backless halter and colour coordinated shorts that she'd worn with the sporty cropped jacket and lace-up boots she'd worn to her monthly visit to Apple Tree Island earlier. Originally dressed for 'a cool day on the beach', with even footwear and tall socks only for caution of tall grass and ticks, she feels like a complete and total jackass walking in here; in February, exposing that much skin, with not only all her jewellery still on, but her fucking sword belt too.

    She looks like a freak. She looks like an idiot. She looks like a gacha character. She wishes she could permanently blind everyone in this store. She can't hear the cashier nervously asking for her order because she's still thinking too hard about if she could erase everyone's memories if she doesn't sit too close to the window.

    'And what is it you rec-com-mend, my-la-dy?'

    Sigh. Of course she can't. That'd be like catnip to this hedonistic Manus Vindictae freak. Schneider can hear the moment Lilian gives up in her voice, before she even shucks her jacket off and folds it over her arm, then pulls the fastening pin from her hair and lets it fall.

    "Hell if I know. I've never been." she says. She wishes she could conjure theatrical dark circles under her eyes by force of will. Her eyes roam to the blood trickle down Schneider's entire leg instead, and Lilian finds herself drained of the grace of God necessary to look away.

    Lilian orders a black coffee.

    'My, the feasting halls of the 'modern' era certainly aren't much to look at, are they?'

    "Don't call it that." Lilian sighs once more, settling at the edge of the booth. "I could show you places that'd make you a debt slave for ordering three courses. This is just . . ." She glances exhaustedly at the boys. She really holds no ill-will for them at all, but, "Where people go when it'd be this or crashing into bed on an empty stomach and three cans of beer."

    What a time for her stomach to growl that loud. It's been four hours since lunch, which means, today, nine hours and eighteen minutes, and an hour of that at least was combat. Lilian ignores it like a cat playing off falling off a windowsill, and sips her foul-tasting coffe instead.

    'hey don't make most of this food to be eaten with utensils, and you don't need any of that getting in your food.'

    Lilian glances down at her hand, holding the cardboard sleeve, and considers getting up to wash them anyways, sensing the glowing red aura of non-existent filth. She reaches for her slutty little crossbody bag instead, and retrieves hand sanitizer instead.

    'Hey. Was that 'homophobia'? Back there?'

    "If you saw the kind of homophobia I was talking about you'd hurl." Lilian says; a private joke, just for herself and the girlies who aren't here, making her giggle despairingly all the same. "She's lucky. W--" Don't say 'woke transsexual skeletor' around friend group C. "--ifey barely seemed cognizant of being awake. Point zero-five on the scale."
Swords of Justice      WcDonalds... Shirou tries to remember the last time he went to one. It had to be when he was still in high school, right? Actually, he doesn't want to think about that anymore. Best to just focus on the now and the reason for being here. That reason being that Lilian seemed keen on inviting them after- Honestly, he's not sure what happened still, and he's not sure he'll get an answer. That's fine though, he rarely gets a satisfying answer or conclusion to anything. It is what it is, as they often say.

     Medusa is also there, partly to try and go back to anything resembling normalcy, and also because she's hoping she can get a mental refresh from what happened.

     'Just get whatever.'

     Medusa sits and thinks as Lilian says that. She can practically hear her sisters whispering in her ears to order everything on the menu in response to that as a joke. Fortunately, she's much more mature than that. After careful deliberation, she simply settles on a kid's meal.

     Shirou on the other hand, just gormlessly stares at the menu. What actually does he want? Maybe a Wcdouble? Chicken nuggets are also good... Ultimately, he just goes for the burger, deciding if he's going to what is essentially a burger joint, he might as well get the main attraction.

     'Was that 'homophobia'? Back there?'

     Medusa just stops eating her food to look at Flamel with an exhausted, pleading look, while Shirou's so taken aback by that statement that he nearly chokes.

     "Is THAT what it was!?"
Schneider Greco      The 'alco-haul' in Schneider's bags consists of several wine-bottles of Forget-Me-Not's alchemical concoctions, which magically become 'any drink you are personally fond of' once in your mouth; several more bottles of fruity-sweet authentic New World white and red wines, gotten through her own dealings; one bottle of vodka; an unlabeled half-bottle of something unsettlingly emerald-green; and a 5/6ths-full six-pack of modern 2020s Miller Lite.

     She orders a cheeseburger, a cheeseburger with bacon, three small fries, a chocolate 'malted shake', and tries to order coffee liqueur but is bargained down by the cashier to a large black coffee.

     "Mhmhm. I do my best, sweet Witch," Schneider says to Lissandra, and then shuts her eyes and leans towards the older woman, expecting her face to be wiped clean for her. "But my hands, mmhh, I al-ways keep them clean~."

     Is that why she's always touching everything with her guns? Not to leave prints? It can't be, right?

     "Miss Schneider, shall I carve you a charm for your generosity?"
     "Mhmhm, thank you, my-la-dy Other Witch," she says while sluttily reclining against the counter and waiting on her food, sunny but just a little teasing. "Hmmm, a charm... some-thing for good sleep. You have that, right?"

     'Was that 'homophobia'? Back there?'
     Schneider, unfortunately, is on the radio a bit more than she seems.

     "It was 'homophobia two', my-lord," she informs him solemnly.
Calvin Nash      Calvin is deathly quiet on the way there, preferring the sound of travel to conversation and letting that sound take his part in any conversation--even when he's asked a direct question, his terse answers come only after an agonizing pretense of silence. It's as if he feels that, by drowning what happened in awkward pauses, he can kill it in his mind and in the minds of everyone else.

    Lilian holds the door open. "Thanks."

    The menu's soft glow, in this moment, looks like some asshole angel of God, hovering over him and passing judgment. 'WcDouble with Cheese,' it says from on high, '3.65. Meal 5.00.' As the line slowly inches towards the counter, more commands are levied; '6 Piece WcNuggets Combo.' All of the words blur together in his mind, as if another language were being spoken to him. He probably looks like a state highway patrol officer, which paints his apparent confusion and irritation at a WcDonald's menu in a baffling light until his inverted pentacle badge and the 'Demon Marshal' on his uniform are more clearly visible.

    "Hey," Calvin says to the person working the till, no doubt adding to the confusion with what is clearly a southern US accent. "Lemme get a... medium... double quarter pounder combo." The drink dispenser is no less a foreign experience; he only recognizes the names from billboards and only one of the brands of drink is one he's had before. The sight of Crisp (Tm) Iced Tea draws his attention enough to have him timidly press the cup into the dispenser. "Shit," he mutters after it dispenses, thinking for a moment that he broke it.

Was that 'homophobia'? Back there?
Is THAT what it was!?

    "Flamel," Calvin grumbles, "You couldn't find your ass with both hands and a map," he says, sliding into the booth with a sullen flop. "We shoulda never been part of that conversation anyway. I didn't train to be no marriage counselor. And if I could fix *stupid,* then Mesmer'd knock all that shit off with Lilian."
Flamel Parsons     "The kind that most would only see in fiction."
    "If you saw the kind of homophobia I was talking about you'd hurl."
    "It's normally worse...?" Flamel says, still staring at the fry.


    "It was 'homophobia two', my-lord,"
    "That's too many answers and the answers were too scary." He says, lightly gritting his teeth in a miserable grimace. Then he dunks the fry in a little plastic cup of ketchup and just leaves it there for several seconds, now resting his eyes on the cup. "I don't think I'm like Necrons. I can't be like Necrons at all." He says, after turning something over in his head, and then bringing the ketchup-sopped chunk to bite into. He looks reflexively very displeased, but it's sort of like the sensation of the food is working on a mental frequency that's not getting picked up by his decisionmaking and speaking.

    "Is THAT what it was!?"
    "S'what I'm saying." He grumbles, then starts biting into the burger he got in a slow, moving-through-molasses, exhausted sort of way. Unable or simply unwilling to acknowledge the immense irregularity of it, he takes one of the five remaining of the six-pack Schneider got and starts to nurse it urgently.

    "Flamel, you couldn't find your ass with both hands and a map."
    "I'm doing my best." He gestures pointedly with the beer. "I'm trained to beat up daddy issues and imposter syndromes, or stop guys from using two-storey lasers to hypnotize the moon." He takes a big sip, and almost pouts. "Girls from outside space have found ways to make everything... really complicated!"
Riku Asakura Is THAT what it was!?

Riku still can't form the words to say anything on this topic.  He simply has no experience with homophobia.  He also agrees with Calvin that they probably shouldn't have been there for that conversation.  After all, it was between two married spouses, and not something they should have been privy to.  

He hears Lilian's stomach growl and wonders why she's not eating anything.  Maybe she doesn't like WcDonald's.  The single black coffee makes him concerned.  When she mentions to Flamel the kind of homophobia she's heard before, or was talking about, he almost gets ill himself.

"I can't imagine it being worse, Ms. Rook..." he says to that, physically becoming sick-looking.  "I just don't understand it."

To the offer of booze, he declines it, "I'm still nineteen, too young to drink," he says, and continues to eat his food, though the topics of conversation and the greasy food make his stomach turn a bit sour.  
Trudy Grimm > "Don't call it that."

    "Haaah, no, you're quite right," the witch concedes. Lilian's description definitely fits the vibe Trudy gets from this place a lot more than whatever she had in mind. Her eyes shift ceiling-wards, "Perhaps I should pull you to one of the great halls at Hamarrheim. I don't think I ever asked, Lilian, how are you with your alcohol?"

> "Mhmhm, thank you, my-la-dy Other Witch. Hmmm, a charm... some-thing for good sleep. You have that, right?"

    "I'll have to think on which runes are most suitable-- but I can definitely do that, yes," Trudy nods once towards Schneider. She runs her fingers through the tangle of stone beads dangling off her hip, her eyes fixed on the menu. After hearing a few other orders, she plucks a smooth round bead of red jasper, then uses that same hand to point, "Ah, I will try this chicken sandwich. It is spicy, no? And these fried potato strings-- No, no, a generous acquaintance has provided me a drink already."

    Trudy turns slightly once her order is in, holding the bead up while focusing on Schneider more directly. Once she's satisfied with... whatever it is she was comparing, the witch settles back.

    "Red Jasper; it matches your eyes, little miss. In the meaning of stones, its strength is in protection and passion," In her free hand she produces an obsidian implement, working carefully into the surface, "It will hold well to the runes that suit your request."

> "And if I could fix *stupid,* then Mesmer'd knock all that shit off with Lilian."

    "Have you tried blunt-force trauma?" Trudy casually offers for Calvin while she works.
Lilian Rook     'Is THAT what it was!?'

    "Oh my god." Lilian rasps from the back of her throat. "One of these days, Parsons, one of your campers is going to reveal themselves as the devil in disguise and take your soul to Hell for all of your sins against . . ." Lilian thinks, then decides. "Me personally." Exasperating again, she brings herself to look at Shirou over her shitty black coffee. "It was complicated." she says. "But you've clearly gotten complacent with your posting. Most Elites are, I suppose."

    Ruminating on that fact for a while, she continues on. "It wasn't always like that either. Even three or four years ago you'd get a fair share of nastiness for it. The Paladins cracked down hard internally on that sort of thing, and I suppose it shifted the lagrange points between the other factions too."

    'It was 'homophobia two', my-lord,'

    Lilian despairs softly and through her nose. She rubs her brow with the heel of her palm. "So you were listening to that." she says, dismayed yet unsurprised. The sheer quantity of food that tiny woman picks up registers as dull shock behind her eyes once the tray is slid onto the table, but she can't find the words to say in response to it. Instead, her eyes rove past it to the selection of alcohol being unpacked, she clearly thinks 'that can't be legal', and then she says "Is that vermouth?" instead. "Where did you even get that in-- No, never mind." In for a penny, in for a pound.

    Her hygeine is immaculate, in that she says "Láithreach." before sliding a pair of empty cups across the table to Schneider. "One of that and one of the house special." Then she stretches her arms out over her head, twists one way, then the other, laces out of her fingers, cracks her knuckles, and slumps into her seat, exhaling.

    'I didn't train to be no marriage counselor. And if I could fix *stupid,* then Mesmer'd knock all that shit off with Lilian.'

    Lilian twitches with irritation at just hearing the name. She mutters "Fucking parasite." with entirely too much verbal fry before she even thinks about it. "Someone should grant her wish and just kill her already. If I hear one more diagosis from that conniving boot-licking whore I'm going to WcFucking lose it."

    'It's normally worse...?'

    "Yes." Lilian drones. "She's a naïve little baby and we wiped her ass."

    'I don't think I'm like Necrons. I can't be like Necrons at all.'

    "Good because I don't like them either now."

    'Girls from outside space have found ways to make everything... really complicated!'

    "Don't say that either." Lilian says, with strange irritation. "She's just 'girls from space'. I'd know it if I saw it, and I saw plenty."
Lilian Rook     'I can't imagine it being worse, Ms. Rook...'

    "You've led a charmed life then, Asakura." Lilian sighs. Is that a wistful tone, actually? "Perhaps that's why the Giants of Light seem to like you." She looks at him over the rim of the coffe precariously suspended by her fingertips. "Don't be in a hurry to find out more. The more you know, the harder it is to be kind. To anyone."

    'I don't think I ever asked, Lilian, how are you with your alcohol?'

    "I drink." says Lilian, who was smashed out of her right mind by the combination of sake and medical opiates for a solid eighteen hours last autumn, and got drunk enough at a Halloween party to shove her fingers in Mesmer Junior's mouth in retaliation for being touched shortly after. "I wouldn't call myself a heavy drinker, but I could say I enjoy the hobby."
Calvin Nash Girls from outside space have found ways to make everything... really complicated!

    "It ain't 'complicated' just 'cause it ain't somethin' that you or me would do." He attempts to take a sip of his Crisp (tm) Iced Tea and ends up coughing and sputtering. "Shit, that'd strip the rust off a trailer hitch," he struggles.

I just don't understand it.

    "That's 'cause it's one of the stupider things that people do," opines Calvin, wiping his mouth with a dab of paper napkin. "'I built up this version of you in my head, and you're sayin' it's wrong, and it wasn't never right, so I'm gonna act like a fuckin' jackass until it's right.'"

Have you tried blunt-force trauma?

    "Don't think she smokes reefer," Calvin answers. "Prolly have some shit to say about it causin' mental illness and turnin' people into criminals and what all else. And I wouldn't share mine with her even if she did smoke. I don't want that dumbass sniffin' 'round my house at all hours. 'You gonna smoke me out or what?'" he facetiously asks, imitating Mesmer's clipped and clinical delivery.

Someone should grant her wish and just kill her already.

    "All *I* want from anybody is for them to *act right.* And we can see how hard to come by that is, now can't we." He chuckles mirthlessly and takes a hearty bite out of his burger. He chews, chews, then shakes his head.

     "Anyway."
Lissandra      Lilian reaching for her own hand sanitizer just by overhearing her is a small positive modifier toward Lissandra, who- actually, nobody would've seen her wash her own hands, come to think? So either she's a hypocrite, or she did it while masking her movements with magic during the walk over, or maybe sometime before they left Meresankh. The stomach growl has her unthinkingly wave a chicken nugget like she's baiting a cat, though. That's at least a *little* rude.

     Schneider's drink heap has Lissandra contemplating pretty intensely. She doesn't drink all that often, but it's tempting to indulge a little bit after a day like this. But they're in public too, and there aren't any glasses around to pour into... Well, Lilian covers herself and Schneider, presumably. She has to decide between two entirely different, ridiculous impressions to make if she wants a drink now, either confidently swigging straight from the bottle in a fast-food establishment or producing her own makeshift glasses to pour into.

The latter is... A bit more bearable. She still feels the need to gently insist, "This isn't usually what I'd prefer to do, but sometimes one must make do..." as she puts her nuggets down, reaches into her bag again and gets out a set of unused glass beakers. No funny shapes, just functional wide-topped cylinders with a little pouring divot on one side of the edge. She has them all pinched together between her fingertips as they come out of her bag, four in each grab, and calmly slides them around the table like she's dealing cards. "I'm already being ridiculous, so I may as well go with the red..." She'll get her wand out to calmly flick the cork-or-cap out of the top, if someone else doesn't beat her to it with a bottle opener or something.

     "Oh I'm 'sweet' am I?" she rallies back at Schneider, stalling for time to figure out what to do about the expectant little lean-in. She could easily make Schneider look like a goofball here, but... She's so tiny and shameless, it's a bit like considering spraying a comfortable cat with water just for a laugh. Lissandra knows she's being played, but even still she relents. She gently tosses the excess length of the cloth over the top of Schneider's head, and gives her face a careful but not terribly gentle scrub, mostly with the pressure of just her thumb. She makes it seem like she's rushing so that Schneider doesn't enjoy being pampered *too* much, but Lissandra's still obviously being careful around her eyes, before yoinking the cloth away again and tossing it into Schneider's lap. "I know you're having fun teasing Lilian, but do wipe up your leg. I'm not crawling under a table for that." She pours herself a beaker of red wine, and takes a little pinky-raised sip, as if to deliberately imply she's too proper.

     Calvin's little hiccup with the dispenser makes Lissandra briefly giggle in a way only someone who recently had the same experience could, equal parts empathy and otherwise, but she skips commenting on his startle for the other parts instead. "I'll admit, I've never been party to... That kind of talk. I was so prepared to have to help with the resuscitation that the, well, implications of their conversation slid off of me at first in my shifted focus..."
Trudy Grimm > "Don't think she smokes reefer."

    Trudy pauses in her carving, then laughs as she hears out Calvin's full assessment of how Mesmer would react to recreational drugs. It's a light, honest sound that doesn't come out of her as often as the semi-forced laughs she usually does.

    "You're probably right, but I was talking about the other kind of blunt, mister Calvin," Assessing him with one eye closed, "You know, with a hammer." She lets that hang in the air as she gets back to carving her gift for Schneider; Already, the x-shaped rune of gifts Gebo is taking shape in the surface.

    Blowing on it, she rotates the bead around a little and starts anew, the eagle-eyed might recognize Algiz, the rune of protection she had used on her charms in the Necron crypt.
Flamel Parsons     "One of these days, Parsons, one of your campers is going to reveal themselves as the devil in disguise and take your soul to Hell for all of your sins against . . . Me personally."
    "'Psy-chic summer camp,' not 'sa-tan-ic summer camp.'" Flamel shakes his head at Lilian. "More common misconception than you'd think. Man... Maybe Agent Vodello would have a better time with all this stuff." He chews another fry, staring into space. "She's got long stylish hair and wears vivid colors and stuff." Why the fuck does that conceptually connect?

    "It ain't 'complicated' just 'cause it ain't somethin' that you or me would do."
    "Well it's more complicated than I'm used to. Most of our mental healing is aimed at, you know, world leaders, or disruptive hyper-academics, or people manifesting genetic memory, or at least major artists." He sips on his drink a while, turning Calvin's words over a bit. "And a lot of their problems are in the same narrow band, I guess."
Schneider Greco      Schneider keeps her eyes shut and lips smiling while Lissandra scrubs her face. "So rough, my-la-dy," she teases near the end, but she doesn't lean away, just blink-blinking off the dampness and catching the washcloth with a sigh.

     I'm not crawling under a table for that.
     "Mmmh, not on a first date, right~?"

     Schneider's eyes- why do they look like that? Human* eyes don't just come out red for no reason, and everything else about her looks normal- land on the matching red jasper, and she smiles a fascinated smile.

     "Ah... not on-ly the carving, but what it is carved on... no, the 'rune', it bet-ter targets me for being carved on some-thing like me, right?" She draws her gun just to stroke the side of her own face with it, charmed, and behind the counter someone dishing up the fries briefly freezes. "Ahhh, did you learn it from your family? I'm jea-lous, la-dy Other Witch."

     She takes her kind-of-huge tray of food, and sliiiides over the table into the booth, wiggling herself down between Lilian and Lissandra. Reluctantly, to meet Lissandra's earlier demand, she hikes up her left leg and starts wiping off the thin dried blood-trickle on her thigh.

     Once that's done, she keeps her leg obscenely up while chugging half her thin black coffee, making a face, topping the styrofoam cup back up with vodka to make the world's shittiest Black Russian, and swilling some of that too.

     "Is that vermouth?"
     Schneider looks at the clear bottle full of green fluid and shrugs with her mouth full of cheeseburger. "Mmph-- ... glrk. How should-I know, my-la-dy?"

     It doesn't smell like vermouth. It smells... like herbal tea, and paint thinner, and licorice, and fresh grass.

     "She's a naïve little baby and we wiped her ass."
     Schneider clucks her tongue softly. That puts her ill-at-ease, as do the other harsh judgements towards Meresankh. But she isn't quite sure how to put words to her unease-

     -let alone when she's pouring a little fry-bucket into her mouth like a beverage, clearly unsure how to eat them but trial-and-erroring it-

     -so instead, after a little while, she asks: "How is 'Holly' these days, my-la-dy?", gentle-prompting.
Lilian Rook     'Shit, that'd strip the rust off a trailer hitch'

    Lilian gestures magnanimously at the alcohol that isn't hers.

    ''I built up this version of you in my head, and you're sayin' it's wrong, and it wasn't never right, so I'm gonna act like a fuckin' jackass until it's right.''

    Lilian swishes her watery coffe around her cup in gentle little spirals. Her elbows remain daintily planted on the table's edge, shoulders suspended between them in restful exhaustion. Her eyes flick back down into the bottom of her black swill, and her lips twitch towards a grimace.

    If that girl knew the damage she'd done back then . . .

    "It's more complicated than that." Lilian says. A little tense. A little pushy, or perhaps needy. "But you're not wrong, I suppose." She forces herself to sip from the bitter coffee machine runoff. She should have checked if 'Wc' does espresso. "Humans are inherently detestable creatures that crave stasis above all else. They recoil from change, flinch from ambiguity, hate interpretation, despise uncertainty, and abhor being forced to move above all else. They'll do anything to cement their place in reality as quickly as possible, even to their own detriment, and they'll believe anything that makes it seem orderly to their sensibilities, such that they never have to believe anything else. They'd rather suffer in silence than take responsibility for their own fate, and they'd rather die than be wrong."

    She doesn't think at all about how this comes across with at least three people in the room who aren't human. She doesn't even think about how, according to her own world, she doesn't get to count anymore either. "It takes constant, tireless effort to teach them anything else, and unblinking vigilance to prevent their instinctual inclination towards rot from taking hold. Once it does, it'll spread like wildfire, because the stasis and rot that they call order and intelligence is their ancient companion, and they're naturally comforted by its presence."

[ansi(243,    'Don't think she smokes reefer')]

    "Cocaine, probably." Lilian drones. "What a waste of time. Perhaps if she tried getting laid instead she'd act a little more normal."

    'This isn't usually what I'd prefer to do, but sometimes one must make do...'

    "Nothing that happened today is something I'd prefer." Lilian says, as reassuring as someone this battered really can. "Present company aside, of course." she adds, with a cheeky smile.

    'I know you're having fun teasing Lilian, but do wipe up your leg. I'm not crawling under a table for that.'


"You disappoint the poor woman." Lilian says, dropping her coffee and going for her booze with the gallows air of the only person in the room who can be considered a high-profile homosexual.

    'She's got long stylish hair and wears vivid colors and stuff.'

    Lilian double takes at Flamel, narrowing her eyes. By impulse, she looks at her own outfit again, and frowns. Couldn't she have asked Tamamo for a boring black tattoo at least?

    'Well it's more complicated than I'm used to. Most of our mental healing is aimed at, you know, world leaders, or disruptive hyper-academics, or people manifesting genetic memory, or at least major artists.'

    "In other words, you're trained to handle solveable problems, not impossibilities." Lilian says. "Well, that's only fair. People have been this way for six thousand years, and they'll stay that way for six-thousand more."
Riku Asakura 'You've led a charmed life then, Asakura.'

"I don't know about that, but I just treat people like I want to be treated.  That and follow the example of Don Shine.  Treat people with dignity and respect." He remembers his lessons from his shitty little Kamen Rider knock-off show quite well.  Not that it's a knock-off show to him, he knew more about Don Shine before he ever heard of a Kamen Rider.  

'Don't think she smokes reefer,'

"What's that?" he asks innocently to Calvin, who seems to know what these things are and is generally a more respectable fellow.  He kept Flamel in check, even, and Flamel is usually hard to control and keep in check.  

Riku catches a glimpse of Schneider's red eyes.  They make him uneasy around her because he's rightfully on edge in her presence.  It's like a prey animal knowing that there is a predator nearby, even if it looks cute.
Calvin Nash I'll admit, I've never been party to... That kind of talk. I was so prepared to have to help with the resuscitation that the, well, implications of their conversation slid off of me at first in my shifted focus...

    "Me neither. It'd be one thing if Meresankh'd asked us for advice 'bout it. That'd be tough, but I could manage for her. But we was *right there* in the middle of it, and we seen that her wife don't even trust *her.* So what the hell would *we*'a said?" He scoffs.

Well it's more complicated than I'm used to.

    "Different is the word," says Calvin.

    "And the difference is, anybody can feel that way. Not just artists and eggheads and world leaders. Like what they got ain't what they're s'posed to have. Like it's gonna take more than..." He rolls his eyes and takes another cloying sip of tea substitute. "'Vivid colors' and 'long hair' to get to where they're s'posed to be."

Lilian gestures magnanimously to the alcohol that isn't hers.

    "Wouldn't love nothin' more," admits Calvin. "But I make it a habit not to touch that or the reefer durin' the work week."

It's more complicated than that.

     Calvin frowns. "I believe you," he says, "But I don't think it's good for guys like me 'n Flamel to *say* it's complicated. Or to think it."

They'll do anything to cement their place in reality as quickly as possible, even to their own detriment, and they'll believe anything that makes it seem orderly to their sensibilities, such that they never have to believe anything else.

     Calvin nods. "And that's exactly why. Sayin' it's complicated lets you put it into a box," he says, his brow knitted together. "And once it's in that box, then you don't gotta think 'bout it, 'cause it ain't part of your reality. It's part of somebody else's 'complicated' shit. And for some people, 'complicated' is awful close to 'made up.'"

     "So, guys like us, Flamel," he says, turning back towards the vague yet menacing WcDonald's patron, "We can say 'that's a crock of shit' and make it out like it's their fault, we can gawk at 'em like zoo animals and talk down to 'em like circus freaks, or we can trust that they know what's s'posed to be there more than we do. And I wouldn't want nobody talkin' down to *me,* *or* tellin' me what to do with what *I* got."

What's that?

     "Marijuana," Calvin says conversational-volume in the WcDonalds.

     He intones sympathetically to Schneider, "Too bad about the coffee. Makes you feel any better, the sweet tea ain't worth a shit either."
Swords of Justice      'But you've clearly gotten complacent with your posting.'

     "I'm trying not to be, but you keep on telling me not to worry about things or not to ask, so I'm getting a bit confused right now on how I'm supposed to avoid that." Shirou just looks down at the burger in his hands, his grip slightly awkward from the slight burns on his palms. Honestly, he should be frustrated by the constant 'you should've known' moments that always seem to follow after the 'it's better you didn't know's moments before, but he's kind of accepted that as a part of life. Either accepted, or grown numb to it. It's probably the latter, but he'd rather not think about it that bleakly.

     As Lilian follows up though, Shirou just nods. While there are thoughts to be had about that, ones he's really not equipped to have, there's nothing for him to add. If the Paladins have already internally resolved the issue, condemning that it happened would change what exactly? Still, leaving dead air is rude, so after finally taking the first bite of his burger, he responds with a well-thought-out "I see."

    

     'S'what I'm saying.'

     "What are you saying though? Explain further, please." He got an answer from Lilian, sort of, so now Shirou's seeing if he can fish one out of Flamel. Medusa continues to give the agent a desperate look as she silently prays for the man to keep his mouth shut and blow Shirou off, but she knows that won't happen. This man was crafted by Athena herself to drive her insane.

     In the closest thing to a pout, she pulls down on the brim of her hat to bring it further down her head and just quietly snacks on the apple slices that came with her meal.
Lilian Rook     'Mmmh, not on a first date, right~?'

    Lilian snorts softly through her nose.

    'Ahhh, did you learn it from your family? I'm jea-lous, la-dy Other Witch.'

    "Don't be. She's a runaway." Lilian says, in oddly neutral tones. She had more to say, but finds her train of thought interrupted by Schneider insistantly wiggling in right next to her. Only a few neurons fire 'danger' this time. Most of them are temporarily paralyzed by the somehow shocking idea that she would actually touch her.

    Her eyes drift inexorably down to the blood again, watching with a kind of irresistible dread.

    'Mmph-- ... glrk. How should-I know, my-la-dy?'

    "Not a connoisseur? You could have fooled me." Lilian says, taking it anyways. She hesitates at the smell, but gives it an experimental sip anyways. No need to look like a pussy.

    'How is 'Holly' these days, my-la-dy?'

    Lilian is fortunate enough to have done so, when that question gets asked. She can play off the face that she makes as the result of foul taste. She wipes her lips with her thumb, holding her breath and tensing her gaze while she thinks far too much all at once.

    "As well as could be, I think. Given the circumstances." Lilian says. "We keep in touch. Every couple of weeks." At first, she sounds evasive, but as a strange, unnameable urge takes hold, half-truths slowly align with facts in her mind, and the matched orbits that click together feel so right that it feels like too much to just leave it at that.

    "She has a job that she's proud of, even though I think they work her to the bone. The people at that school who made her life hell are all smiles now, even if only because they have to be. Personally, I wish she'd sue." Lilian says, then laughs softly at her own stupid opinion. "She finally cut contact with her parents, too. Took her far too long, but she did it. I can't imagine how complicated she must have felt, so I won't criticize too much. Ever since she did, you'd hardly ever believe she's the same girl as before, never mind back then. She's too nervous about it, really. Like she thinks that everyone else remembers everything she does. But her career, her love life, everything is going so well that I think it scares her a little. Like the other shoe is suddenly going to drop after all these years."

    Lilian wears a thoughtful little frown, and lets her eyes wander. She switches over to the concoction she has no idea is a potion, drinking it more fondly now. "She's gorgeous, you know. One of the smartest people I've ever met. She was one of the lucky ones, except one of the unluckiest too. Everything worked out for the best, in the end. She has so much more than the people around her, despite what it took. I can even see where the scars are starting to fade. So . . ." After bracing herself with another swallow of strong liquor, Lilian sighs, deflating slightly on her elbows. "I don't know why I still wish that I'd done more. Been braver. Helped her more, sooner, with less hesitation. It doesn't make any sense. And I suppose I feel very shallow whenever I think that nobody else ever measures up; so why should they need more than I gave her?"
Trudy Grimm > "I wouldn't call myself a heavy drinker, but I could say I enjoy the hobby."

    As she works, Trudy makes a thoughtful noise at Lilian's words. After a moment, she nods once, "That's plenty then. Ahaha~, not that they'd care much if it were cider or even water, at the end of the day a good feast in the mead hall is more about the company than the alcohol. The raucous singing and mirth, the constant movement, the jokes and the stories and the shouting... there's a special energy to it, you know?"

> "Ah... not on-ly the carving, but what it is carved on... no, the 'rune', it bet-ter targets me for being carved on some-thing like me, right?"

    "Ahh? The properties of the stone would aid whether it resembled something about you or not, ahaha~," Trudy closes her eyes, gently working the obsidian blade with her thumb, "Though I do have a bit of a habit of choosing stones that compliment a color on the recipient. Eyes, or hair, or a treasured jewel or bauble in a pinch. I feel like that adds a personal touch, no? Else I could offer any old bead with the Protection rune already carved in it and that would be that."

> "Ahhh, did you learn it from your family? I'm jea-lous, la-dy Other Witch."

    "You're free to call me Trudy if you like, or 'Lady' Grimm if you insist on being so formal," Her hands shift again. Algiz is finished, and so she sets herself upon a more obscure rune; Peorth, the Hearth.

    "Please don't envy me. Both of my parents are dread lords from the dark moors, the Lady of Shadows and the Lord of Pain. I shamefully learned too much from them before I left that place and started studying on my own." She often likes to be cagey about this, but with recent events, she feels there's no reason to hide it anymore. Lilian thankfully pitches in on the matter, which pulls a little laugh out of her.
Lissandra      Lissandra is really not accustomed to Schneider's persistent use of innuendo. She keeps thinking she's safe after one deflection or counter-comment, and getting caught slightly off guard right afterward. "... Well, after your talk of 'incentives' I can't very well make it too comfortable, or you'll begin expecting it again." She says this into her beaker-glass, trying to sell it as common sense. The 'first date' quip very nearly wins Schneider a huffy complaint, but Lissandra does her best to contain it in the scrunching of her neck down into her shoulders, the squinting of her eyes and a slight pout to boot. "I wouldn't have imagined you'd be so hungry for attention... I can't imagine you normally struggle to find it." Lilian quipping on Schneider's behalf somehow takes some of the pressure off, and Lissandra can more easily make a mildly dramatic slump-and-huff, one elbow on the table and her cheek in her palm. "We all must survive disappointment, now and then." She pauses for a bit of mental calculus, and jokes "I'm getting older, I have to take care of my poor, poor knees." Nevermind that she hardly even looks like she's past her 20's.

She probably gets caught peeking at Schneider's eyes in her peripheral vision, but plays it off with a smoothly deniable roll of her neck like she's simply looking around at everyone as they speak. Whatever she's thinking of asking, it doesn't feel appropriate at this specific moment perhaps.

     Swerving back into the other topic while feeling like she could swerve away again at any moment, Lissandra grumbles comisseratingly in Calvin's direction. "Exactly! If she'd just been a little more specific in advance, we could have had all of this lined up more neatly. I don't make a habit of doing counseling, but I'd rather give advice before we get to that point... And then not be in the room anymore, indeed. The very fact she didn't think to warn us had me assuming a completely different scale of unease, and I nearly made myself out to be quite-..." She pauses, sighs like she's resolving herself to some kind of ordeal, and then concludes perfectly level-toned, "Quite an asshole. To borrow a turn of phrase." It's okay Lissandra, you don't need to pretend it's your first time hearing swear words. "I'm sure there would have been better people to coach her through that kind of thing anyway."
Lilian Rook     'I don't know about that, but I just treat people like I want to be treated. That and follow the example of Don Shine.'

    "That's what I mean." Lilian says, extending one finger from her alkie cup. "The fact you can keep doing that means that nobody made you regret it badly enough to stop. Which is good. Especially at your age. Keep it up long enough and it might stick like a habit." she says. "Or at least, if someone does make you regret it, get pissed off and keep being that way out of spite. Fuck them."

    'Me neither. It'd be one thing if Meresankh'd asked us for advice 'bout it. That'd be tough, but I could manage for her. But we was *right there* in the middle of it, and we seen that her wife don't even trust *her.* So what the hell would *we*'a said?'

    Lilian's head slumps, chin touching her chest. She sighs from the diaphragm, digging deep in aggravation. "That's exactly what makes it so easy to feel angry with her instead of sympathy or pity." Lilian says. She realizes that's far too much to say already, only after, and then that nobody would pay enough attention to notice. "If it's just an awkward little wife-fight to her then what does she need from us? I understand that it wasn't her intention to have us there for it, but the fact that she couldn't at least have just said 'hey can we do this when the primitive untermensch have gone?' makes me so mad."

    'But I make it a habit not to touch that or the reefer durin' the work week.'

    "I make it a habit to flush the cortisol out of my brain before it causes irreparable damage." Lilian sarcastically monotones.

    'And that's exactly why. Sayin' it's complicated lets you put it into a box,'

    She pauses unusually long for 'anything that Calvin' said. It comes with measurable reluctance that she says, "I suppose. 'It's complicated' means 'don't ask', but some people are indeed inclined to interpret it as 'you needn't think about it'."

    'Marijuana'

    "I'm not going home smelling like a skunk." Lilian deflects.

    'I'm trying not to be, but you keep on telling me not to worry about things or not to ask, so I'm getting a bit confused right now on how I'm supposed to avoid that.'

    Hm. Lilian didn't like that, but she's not sure how Shirou is actually wrong. It's written on her face. "I suppose that's a little unfair of me." she says, tight-lipped and grudging. "But when I say 'don't worry about it', it's because I don't know if explaining it will cause someone to try to help or immediately begin causing damage. It's not because I want you to maintain your innocence or anything." she says. "That's the shit thing about wanting to help people. You have to work together if you want to reach beyond your means, but you have to let them in to work together with them; and once they're in, you can never really know what they'll do."

    'The raucous singing and mirth, the constant movement, the jokes and the stories and the shouting... there's a special energy to it, you know?'

    Lilian smiles very faintly. The Norse tradition isn't her, but it's not all that far from what she'd read and re-read a million times about the Red Branch as a child. "I'd like to." she says. "Scáthach could drink me under the table, and Dunscaith was a little lonely for that besides."

    'I'm getting older, I have to take care of my poor, poor knees.'

    "I know a good surgeon." Lilian says, on uncountable levels of irony.
Riku Asakura 'Marijuana,'

"Oh," Riku says, turning his voice tone lower to not be conversational about drugs in a fast food restaurant of all places.  He doesn't know where to go from there.  So he simply latches onto the next conversation like a man hanging onto a boat in the ocean for dear life.  

'That's what I mean.'

"Oh!" he says, more upbeat, listening to the rest of what Lilian is saying.  "Well, I'll certainly put my all into keeping it up, even if others try to tear it away from me.  I won't let them!" he says with enthusiasm.  He goes back to eating, now less ill and more his usual self.  
Flamel Parsons     "What are you saying though? Explain further, please."
    Two boys who absolutely fucking shouldn't be trying to solve problems together start trying to hold up halves of a plutonium core. "She got... married, right? Space married." Flamel rumbles around the second of the batch of beers. "She got space married to someone who slept for a long time, and I napped for years once so I'm talking a *long* time, and then she wakes up." He gestures with the drink firmly and takes a hefty bite of the burger. "And when she wakes up?" He waggles it at Shirou. "Homosexual." Another bite. "Surprise! And she doesn't like that, I guess? That's homophobia. I think. Which, well, I guess I haven't had to deal with that sort of thing much." He says, untruthfully but not lying.

    "And the difference is, anybody can feel that way."
    "I mean, not exactly." He rambles a bit. "Everyone's suffering is different. We're well-practiced for certain kinds, and I guess we're not practiced for other kinds? Usually agents like Nein and Vodello *are* enough. Usually it's misunderstandings and small things that got out of hand. Not..." He gestures vaguely. "Not *lifetimes*. You know? There's a lot of lifetimes lately. I'm equipment that's not been rated for that yet. It might be simple, but it sure isn't small, or at least not as small as I'm built for."

    "And I wouldn't want nobody talkin' down to *me,* *or* tellin' me what to do with what *I* got."
    "That's probably a risk." He rambles, digging into the fries with more energy now. "But... I mean, I take a punch from 'complicated', you know? If I get into a mindscape, it can hit me tangibly. I guess 'bigger than the scale I know how to handle' might not be much of a better box, but." He shrugs in a plaintive, helpless way. "I'm not much of a person, I'm an apparatus. I'm built for one class of lifting." He chews on one of the fries for an extra long time. "I just don't know. Is it wrong for a wagon to say there are things past its carrying capacity, and things that aren't?" He eventually asks, wrongly.
Lilian Rook     'And when she wakes up? Homosexual. Surprise! And she doesn't like that, I guess?'

    Lilian curls her lip. She hadn't really meant to talk even this much about it; everyone was supposed to sit i silence and listen to Calvin ramble about sports or trucks or something. Now that Flamel has gotten this far, though . . .

    "Possibly. If that's all it is. But it can also be 'you are trying to make me a homo!', and they go ballistic at the perceived threat." She adds, sullenly, "Or whatever. You really aren't rated for it. That's fine. Not your department."
Calvin Nash But when I say 'don't worry about it', it's because I don't know if explaining it will cause someone to try to help or immediately begin causing damage.

    "He handled the society shit pretty good," Calvin offers in Shirou's favor.

Is it wrong for a wagon to say there are things past its carrying capacity, and things that aren't?

    "Not for a wagon," says Calvin, "But for you? Yeah. It is wrong. 'Cause you ain't a damn wagon. We all got jobs to do. That don't *make* us the jobs. Besides." He takes another bite of his burger, then washes it down with a sip of fountain tea, grimaces and shakes his head as if it were straight vodka from Schneider. "You got a lot of shit, and a little wagon, you move a little at a time. Pain in the ass, but better than lettin' it sit in the rain."
Schneider Greco      "Please don't envy me. Both of my parents are dread lords from the dark moors..."
     "Ah, so you are a pure-blood..." Schneider murmurs. She hesitates slightly, not agreeing not to envy Trudy. Still her eyes can't leave the carving. "... As you say, my-la-dy Grimm. That your thoughts go to fashion, mhmhm, I do like it. When I am feeling fan-cy, I wear things of pearl and sil-ver, too..."

     "Still, you give to me more than you take. I did-not brew these drinks myself, did I?" she teases lightly, before finishing up her burger.

     "I wouldn't have imagined you'd be so hungry for attention... I can't imagine you normally struggle to find it."
     "Mmmh... I don't dress this way for o-thers, she says after a wiggle-thoughtful moment. (Schneider is, against the odds, nice to sit next to. She smells very strongly of oranges, but not quite objectionably so; her two oversized handguns could easily press into one's side, but she moves consciously of them. Her nearly-bare hips are warm.) "Ex-cept those whose gazes I am paid to hold."

     "That I catch at-ten-tion... mhh, there was no a-void-ing this. But whose attention, it does mat-ter. Most eyes, my-la-dy, are a bur-den. O-thers are a joy. Can you guess which one yours are?" she says, catching Lissandra peeping by holding eye contact herself.

     "We all must survive disappointment, now and then."
     "Hmhm, do-not be too sad that I like to take things slow~."

     The green drink tastes about as it smells: intriguingly minty-herbal, punishingly sharp with alcohol, earthy and bitter.

     It's probably absinthe, come to think of it. Hm.
Schneider Greco      "Personally, I wish she'd sue."
     Schneider smiles, warmly relaxed, as Lilian starts to tell her story. She swirls the shitty coffee in her cup, with a silent smiling nod to Calvin.

     "She's too nervous about it, really. Like she thinks that everyone else remembers..."
     The smile turns absently, slightly-painedly, sympathetic. Yeah. That is how it works.

     "She was one of the lucky ones, except one of the unluckiest too."
     "She has so much more than the people around her..."
     "And I suppose I feel very shallow whenever I think that nobody else ever measures up; so why should they need more than I gave her?"
     "That is very shallow, my-la-dy." Schneider's tension very slowly built, there, and then peaked for those words to leave her lips.

     "That's exactly what makes it so easy to feel angry with her instead of sympathy or pity."
     Schneider stands up in her booth-seat, and sits down on the table to wall off everyone else from Lilian's view with her body, and plants her shoe just above Lilian's near shoulder on the booth-back.

     "That is beneath you," she says. Her fingers coax up the bottom of the green bottle.

     "The luckiest among the unlucky. There is romance in Holly, of pret-ty face, low birth, and good mind, right? There is no romance in our foolish queen. But still it does not become you to judge her. Now drink, and let's forget things said in ex-haus-tion."

     Her words and tone are only a gentle reprimand, but her eyes are very insistent.
Trudy Grimm > "Ah, so you are a pure-blood..."

    "That is truth," Trudy admits with her eyes closed, "I would rather not think of things in measures of 'purity' and 'blood', though." In start contrast to the general obsession with bloodlines that nests within the thinking of many magical disciplines, Trudy clearly dislikes the idea. Being the one decent(?) person in a family of horrendous magical supervillains probably does that.

    With her eyes still closed, she confesses, "I apologize, I don't have any silver or pearl on hand, so I hope that red jasper will meet your standards." Wait, wasn't this just a gift she decided to offer on a whim in thanks for bootleg whiskey?

    She blows on the stone again, holding it up to look it over. Her other hand tucks the knife away and she lets the bead go; dangling now by its little leather strap.

> "Still, you give to me more than you take."

    Closing her eyes, the witch laughs a bit, "Don't worry about it." The bead is held out towards Schneider-- presumably once she's done encouraging Lilian to drink. As she identifies each rune, she turns the charm slightly to show the little Sicilian its shape. As she names each one, a little spark runs down her fingers, through the strap, and fills the relevant carving with a soft blue light.

    "Gebo, the rune of blessings and gifts, a vehicle upon which the charm's intention rides. Algiz, the rune of Protection, for safety and security. And Peorth, the rune of the Hearth, of home and of cooking and of comfort." She gestures a bit, urging Schneider to take it, "It's a little more general than you asked, but among its other benefits, you should sleep quite soundly. Keep it near your bed, hanging free if possible."

    In return for this, she selects one of those unmarked bottles and collects her chicken and fries and finally seats herself to try this Spicy WcChicken.
Lissandra      Lissandra smirks back at Lilian about the surgeon. "You'll have to refer me sometime." She lets the humor drop naturally, though, and chews her way through a single chicken nugget while the others carry on. She's still tempted to stay quiet and not stick her neck out over the topic, but it starts to feel a little strange to stay *completely* silent for much longer.

     "... Well, if I've learned anything, it's that if you want to help it needs to be on the terms of the people who need it most. Making a stupid mistake can lose you a lot of trust, but the more closely you work with the people in question, the faster you can build that trust back up. Lilian's correct, that plenty of people are drawn to stasis. But there are enough people, also, that just *seem* drawn to stasis, because they don't know what the alternative is like, or others have chosen to hold them still." She makes a 'offering' gesture toward Calvin, while looking at Flamel. "Do a little at a time, with care. Fix what you damage. Keep a little list of experts in mind when you're out of your depth. If you have to rely on someone who knows more than you, you can pay for that later, in little social gestures, favors, and so on. That's the basis of how a society should work, anyway. Some people won't allow you to help them, and some people won't need your help, but there's nothing wrong with offering what you have and letting the needful decide if they want it." Then, she makes a 'zipping' motion with her pinched fingertips in front of her face, like that's as much as she's going to insist on saying on the matter, with a small glance at Lilian's tired reluctance and (in a few moments) Schneider's firm redirection.

     Before the latter point, though, she takes a sip of wine, then lemonade, then wine again before speaking back to Schneider. "Mm... I suppose not everyone can choose when they draw attention." she self-reminds aloud, limp-wristedly fanning her face with her hand. "It's a little nice to hear that you dress as you like, in a sense? I think many are missing out on such things." Schneider asks her to make a guess, and she pauses a moment before taking the coward's way out again, answering "I could guess, but I think I would risk enflaming my vanity."

One more sip of wine, almost finishing her glass. Actually, come to think, despite her expression staying quite deliberately under control, she's been drinking more with each time Schneider's flirted. Talk of taking things slow, though, does get Lissandra to lazily reach out and arch a finger to lightly flick Schneider's ear. She's smiling, though.

     Then Schneider's up on the table, and Lissandra pulls her elbow off it to lean back into the crummy WcDonalds booth-seat padding with her beaker-glass and her little box of two remaining chicken nuggets, which she decides to finish off in a matching number of mouthfuls. They're really not that big!
Flamel Parsons     "Not for a wagon, but for you? Yeah."
    "Oh! I get it! You've made a common mistake." Flamel says, beaming brightly for the first time in this. Finally, familiar ground! "You think I'm a person! I'm actually a replicant infiltrator." He shakes his head, and takes a bite to finish off his burger. "You're probably right about people, but not me."

    "You really aren't rated for it. That's fine. Not your department."
    "I hope I've broken my habit of trying to twist it into something familiar. It's its own thing. I should focus on... channeling the truths that they mean for others, instead of studying it enough that it becomes mine." He sways a bit as he tries to work around the words. "And I shouldn't get deeply involved in necron politics."

    That's the point where Schneider gets up on the table to wall out Lilian, and that seems to put a punctuation on that conversation as well.

    He winds up bothering Lissandra for a bit, inserting himself into that conversation. "Honestly, I *have* a lot of good advice for someone to deal with healthy types of mental stress. You're *supposed* to feel bad in a situation like that, you know? That's the intended functionality of a mind. But, space skeletons can't go to a WcDonalds, or benefit from doing it in any way at least. All their pets are scary scarabs. She's getting space divorced so she can't go spend time with her spouse, since that's the source of the problem. None of the usual stuff works! I meen, jeez, no matter some of those guys were so mad down there."

    He finishes off his second beer. "I'd be a little mad all the time too, if I couldn't take a break from skeleton activities."
Lilian Rook     'That is very shallow, my-la-dy.'
    'That is beneath you'

    The words stop Lilian in her tracks. The unlikely company that she had just started to warm herself to becomes ice. The numbing relaxation that she had allowed to seep into her is wrung out with a single tensing breath. The bland and unassuming interior of a nowhere fast-food diner may as well be a room full of needles.

    'But still it does not become you to judge her. Now drink, and let's forget things said in ex-haus-tion.'

    "Well, if we're forgetting things today, allow me to indulge." Lilian says. The casual air of shared exhaustion wicks off her. Reserve energy floods her veins, cold and tingling-sharp. Her heart rate jumps twenty beats per minute. "I was obsessed with that girl, back then. I knew every little thing that went on with her, even when she wouldn't say so. And do you know what sweet, pretty, lucky little Holly looked like back then?"One glass is enough to lose her composure, but not enough for this. Surely.

    "Her own parents beat the shit out of her, and they knew well enough to do it where the uniform wouldn't show. Our teachers made a game out of humiliating her in the middle of class, and encourages the students to laugh. The boys would rough her up four on one, the girls would steal her things and I'd pay for them because she didn't have any money and she'd get beaten for coming home without them. The kindest thing anyone ever called her by was 'it'. Her family tried to institutionalize her twice, and the school tried it a third time. She was rich as any of us and ended up stealing to eat anyways, because the servants lost their jobs for taking pity on her. I was written up more times than I can count for calling her by name. I lent her one of my uniforms and a gang of boys tried to tear it off of her."

    "I was too much of a coward to help her that first year. I couldn't stand it any more by second year, when she was doing things to herself that made her pass out, see things, and throw up blood, and she'd get reported for doing it in the girl's bathroom. When it finally seemed like everyone ran out of steam and started ignoring her instead, the first guy to get a crush on her couldn't take no for an answer and went fucking ballistic; he went to the hospital instead of her going to the morgue because she'd been secretly carrying a weapon for years, and that was the only time she dared use it."

    "So I learned to be heartbroken for someone else. I learned to be patient, and generous, and to get in trouble for the right thing to do, and to be so so very angry. And I'd never wish that on anyone else, but when I see someone so lucky that the thought never even enters their minds that anyone else could feel a way that matters about it, like it's a cute little fact about them and anyone who doesn't get with the picture is just embarrassing themselves, it's like they're blaming it all on her. It's like they're saying she's not even the third thing; like they're telling me she's an even filthier, more contemptible and loathsome fourth thing that even they don't want anything to do with, and that she deserved it because she couldn't be as fucking graceful about it as they can. And thinking about that makes me feel so so very angry all over again."

    Gripping her shitty cardboard cup full of entirely too-strong alcohol with entirely too much delicacy, carefully maintaining the exact pressure that will neither crumple nor spill, Lilian mocks a toast with "To shallowness." on her lips, and tips it back in one go. It's always when there's drinking.
Swords of Justice      'That's the shit thing about wanting to help people. You have to work together if you want to reach beyond your means, but you have to let them in to work together with them, and once they're in, you can never really know what they'll do.'

     "People often like to think that it takes a lot more to be cold and uncaring than to be nice. Honestly though, I think not caring is the easiest thing to do in the world. It's like you said, you have to expose a lot of yourself if you really want to help, and most people don't want to do that because they're scared." Shirou's weirdly excited to talk about this subject, but he seems to catch himself and calms down, clearing his throat before taking another bite of his burger.

     "Anyway, sorry, I assume you want to talk about anything else right now. That's the point of coming out here, right?" He says this, but honestly, what else is he supposed to talk about? The weather? That's too obvious. His college courses? His current life isn't that interesting. His friends? He kind of already did once, and he instantly regretted it...

Shirou takes yet another bite of his burger, his brow now furrowed in annoyance as he realizes he's not very good at normal conversation.
Lissandra      Flamel's bothering is an easy thing to shift focus onto, especially right after lecturing him lightly. He catches her with a mouthful of chicken nuggy, but that just means she has a moment to arrange thoughts. "Mm, when you can't deal with the root cause, the only thing to do is to treat the symptoms and let one sort themselves out. If she weren't royalty, I'd be suggesting things like... social events with close friends, or maybe have her try out some new hobby as a distraction. Not that I indulge in counseling." She has to reiterate from earlier, distancing herself from the idea again and cutting herself short for some unstated reason that can only be read as 'enough to make her feel doubt', going by her tone and the way her eyes slide off of Flamel. It's hard to justify carrying on right now anyway, since Lilian is speaking so effusively and heartfeltly, and Lissandra isn't quite certain whether she's supposed to be politely ignoring or raptly listening, so she lands awkwardly in the middle and leaning toward the latter simply because getting up and leaving feels like the only obvious wrong choice.

     She doesn't offer pithy and ill-considered commentary, or pout and make noises. She just absorbs the experiential outpour as the bystander she is, her eyes half-lidded with slowly welling, unsteady sympathy that her gut tells her to aim into her glass instead of directly at Lilian. It stings to hear about such an awful example of someone having gone lonely and without help. She doesn't agree with the sentiment of Lilian's specific toast, but...

     "To... Surviving." It's soft and a little hesitant, unlike the glass-emptying drink she takes in imitation. There's no way to make an experience like that any better just in conversation.
Swords of Justice 'Another bite. "Surprise! And she doesn't like that, I guess? That's homophobia. I think. Which, well, I guess I haven't had to deal with that sort of thing much.'

     "I see... I think I'm beginning to understand why Medusa and everyone else said we shouldn't have been there. Thank you." If Shirou could bow to show his appreciation, he would. Unfortunately he is sitting down with food in hand and a table blocking his way, so Flamel will simply have to imagine it. Given he's some sort of weird mind agent, he's probably doing so.
Schneider Greco      Schneider's shoe remains planted against the booth-back beside Lilian's shoulder throughout, not barring her way out of the booth but barring the way further in. Her other leg, drawn in, keeps her modest.

     On net, if sides are drawn, this is a group of people that (Schneider believes) has every reason to take Lilian's. The purpose of her posture atop the table, in barring both herself and Lilian from seeing any of the others' expressions, is to preserve the fiction for a moment that it's only the two of them; delay social consensus from crystallizing.

     Her eyes can't meet Lilian's yet. From the tone either this is an attack, in which case the important thing is how others are taking it; or this is an uncontrolled vulnerability, in which case she doesn't know how she should take it.

     "And do you know what sweet, pretty, lucky little Holly looked like back then?"
     Roughly here, her priorities shift. Her spine relaxes. Her leg drops, to a crossed-legs-perching posture. Schneider reaches behind her back, and from seemingly-nowhere pulls out a dark claw-footed umbrella, and opens it in the direction of the rest of the WcDonald's- it's unlikely given seating that anyone outside the table has overheard much, but good for making doubly-sure.

     It's a different kind of social consensus, now, that has to be kept from crystallizing.

     "but when I see someone so lucky..."
     Her smile, gone 'til now, returns to tug slightly queasily. Her eyes do come to Lilian's, again.

     "To shallowness."
     "That we should all be so lucky as to be shallow."

     But the umbrella parting the Elites' tables from the rest of the restaurant doesn't come down, just yet.

     "And the rest of the world," she says. "The great queens and lucky gov-er-nors, who have-not even so much in kind with sweet Holly as this one thing. How to them do you feel, my-la-dy?" But it is only halfway a real question. She supposes she knows already. The answer shouldn't be spoken even under this umbrella, anyway.

'Do you hate them? You do, don't you? That little bit even more, like I do?'

     Whether it's answered or not, after a moment, the umbrella shuts, and her hand asks for the green bottle to swig from too. Whatever that awful stuff is, now she needs it.
Schneider Greco      Once she's decompressed enough to wiggle back down in her seat, and pour the third sheaf of Small Fries (which seem to be the same size as everyone else's regular fries, just fewer of them?? hm.) down her gullet like a seagull, she can reconnect on other threads.

     "It's a little nice to hear that you dress as you like..."
     "My-la-dy Witch," Schneider says, with her jacket halfway shuffled off her sluttily bare shoulders by now, "I do-not at all dress as I like; I should like to wear nothing, but for this, ah, they try to have me ar-res-ted." She clucks her tongue, as if that were purely tiresome.

     She does have very flickable ears. "And you? How would you dress, if it were on-ly your will?"

     "I apologize, I don't have any silver or pearl on hand..."
     "No, no, you are too kind al-rea-dy, La-dy Grimm," she purrs a little later. She makes a delighted little noise, leaning in, when Trudy makes the spark of magic, and then receives it in her cupped hands gently as if it were a tiny animal.

     "Ah, if it will help me not to burn my food, then all the more to thank you for, my-la-dy," she says perkily, turning it over to look at the different symbols with her thumb. "By my bed, not on my person...? Ah, my mother, she will not ap-prove... mmh, but I have done stranger."

     She slips it into her jacket-pocket after another minute or two of admiring the stone warmly. "Mmmh, the lords here are so generous."
Trudy Grimm > "By my bed, not on my person...?"

    With a little laugh, Trudy gestures with her free hand, the other holding the remaining half of her sandwich, "If the desire is just for a good sleep, then yes. Ah, but if you want its boons at other times, it would make for a fetching addition to a charm bracelet or necklace, no? That should be most suitable and not obstruct it in the least. Beads are wonderful things for such runes."

    Eyes opening, she glances aside, "And perhaps avoid unnecessary ire. I wouldn't want to cause you undue troubles." With witchcraft in a home that might not actually approve of such things.