zenderael_rl | [EVENT]

It was uplifting to see that reaction. The fact that she shared no love for emu was a point in her favour. "Meat, leather, down, feathers, there's a lot of shit you can get from an emu. It's a pretty popular beef alternative, too." He didn't sound particularly invested in the explanation, because he wasn't. "I hate the damn things, though."

The look didn't quite go away. People ate them, too? She didn't want anything to do with an emu ever, but maybe she ready had? That just made it worse. "I'm not surprised," she said, the disgust in her voice bringing a certain shine to her British accent, as only disgust could.

"But neither of you are taking the ranch after?"

"Nope," and he sounded glad for it. "Steve's the only one who cares, so Steve gets it." A bite, a pause. "Steve's my little brother," he added, realizing she needed some context for that.

There was a brief silence on her part, trying to figure something out, before she finally asked, in the slow way of a person unsure if they want the answer, "how many siblings do you have?" Because it was a little like a clown car for her, with all these names popping up.

"Six," he said, like it wasn't even anything worth mentioning. If he noticed her hesitant tone, he gave no sign of it. "All younger, one brother, five sisters." Thankfully, he wouldn't name them off unless she asked him to.

No, no, that was quite all right. The number alone caught her off guard, and she looked at him again, perhaps dumbfounded, a moment before she said simply, "ah," with no idea how to proceed. People still had that many children?

Ah, and she was keeping him from his food. She relented into silence, her shoulders still touching the wall behind them, her hands folded comfortably in front of her. There wasn't really anyone for her to recognize but she liked to watch people from a distance, and this seemed ideal for it.

He let them fall into a comfortable silence, content to concentrate on his food until one of them settled on something else to talk about.

Reclassifying Theresa under "decent company" was definitely a good choice.

He did finally settle on a question and looked to her, his gyro half-eaten by now, to ask, "You have any siblings?"

She didn't look back to him to answer his question, eyes still lazily scanning the crowd. "No," she said distantly, shifting to reach up and pull her hair off of her shoulders. "I was an only child." A beat. "No emus."

He chuckled at that. "No emus," he repeated. "Good."

But being an only child had always sounded lonely to him. Sure, sometimes he hated coming from such a large family, but he wouldn't trade any of his sisters for the world, and Missie was one of the most important people in his life. "You ever get lonely, not having any siblings?" he asked.

"Not at all common in England," she clarified, not for comedic effect though it could be taken as such. She recalled a school trip that had visited the London Zoo where there had been emus and ostriches. They still stuck out as being repulsive animals.

At his question she did look back to him, green eyes blinking once as she thought on her answer with a blank expression. "...I don't know," she said after a moment's consideration, looking towards the floor. "No, I don't think I was." She'd gone to several homes with other children, but had, by nature, ignored them. Even her time at the orphanage had been spent largely on her own. She couldn't even imagine the faces of the people she'd lived with.

She hadn't even thought on them until now, since she'd left.

He was taking a bite when she answered, making it obvious when he paused for a brief moment at the answer she gave, his eyes flickering to her before he continued.

'I don't know' was a strange thing to say to that, he felt. And there seemed to be a hint of emotion in the way her gaze turned downward.

He chewed, swallowed. "Sorry. If that was a bad thing to ask."

"Why would it be a bad thing?" she asked, looking back to him, puzzled. He'd asked a question, she'd answered. "I'd never considered it before." She shook her head slightly. "...I wouldn't know what to do with another person."

Well, at least she wasn't upset or offended. He still felt a bit like he'd tripped over a landmine, but he was willing to let it go if she said it wasn't a big deal. Theresa was easy to take at face value. It was part of what made her so low-energy to be around.

But he didn't know how to respond to a confession like that. He didn't think she was awkward (and after playing Ravi for two years, he definitely knew awkward), so that didn't seem like the problem. "Talk?" he suggested. "You've been doing okay so far."

Mal made his way through the crowd after picking up a few more loukoumades, the sweets tucked into a napkin as he looked for somewhere to settle down to enjoy them. He spied Duncan easily, and made his way over- it would mean not being able to sit, but the things weren't that difficult to eat, fortunately.

"Hey, Chief," he greeted, grin broad, and gave a nod to Theresa in greeting. "Hope I'm not interrupting." He actually didn't really care if he was. "You two enjoying the food?"

"Ah... but that's not so hard," she said, misinterpreting the statement somewhat. Of course talking wasn't hard- she just had different standards for indulging it.

When Mal came up, she looked at him, and almost contrary to her own words fell silent, saying nothing as greeting and acknowledging his presence with a look, though she looked away just as easily, in a sense dismissing him. Really, though, it was her manner of freeing up Duncan to speak with him, a figurative stepping back (since she and Duncan were still leaning against the wall) that she usually did when there was more than one person around.

His response was interrupted by Mal, and he easily let Theresa fade into the background as Mal's presence dominated the space. "Hey," he greeted. "Wouldn't be eating it if I wasn't. What's up?" Because it wasn't like Mal would interrupt his conversations unless he had something to talk about, right?

...right?

Oh, Duncan, Mal rarely had anything particular to talk about when he pestered people. Silly man.

Mal snickered. "I dunno, would you be willing to waste it if you didn't like it?" Maybe if he absolutely despised it, but simply not enjoying something didn't necessarily make it inedible.

He shrugged, tucking the cane against his hip under the coat so it wouldn't fall, which freed up both hands for eating. "Just wondered how you were making out." He nodded again to Theresa, tearing off a small piece of one of the pastries. "Haven't had a chance to talk to you, yet. You work at the library, don't you? On campus?" Mal didn't go to the library all that often, but he was sure he'd seen her at least once.

That bit of honey goodness found its way to his mouth after he spoke, Mal watching Theresa expectantly.

"Yes," she said simply, looking back to Mal after a moment, not realizing right away that he'd been speaking to her. She ended up looking away again, making no attept to pad her answer or make further pleasantries.

He just rolled his eyes at Mal's comment and went back to his food while conversation turned toward Theresa.

Well. "Conversation." She didn't much feel like having one with Mal, it seemed. "She plays Reilanin," Duncan supplied, to explain how they knew each other.

His brow rose, mildly amused, and his attention returned to Duncan. "Not very talkative, is she?" He was just like Valentine in that regard, calling people out on their silence, even if only briefly. "Oh, the mage Marlene mentioned?" He paused to glance back towards Theresa, not knowing if she was aware of everything going on in-game.

To dodge a possible awkward bullet, he looked back to Duncan, grinned broadly, and changed the topic. "You seen that blog? The uh, 'You Be The Judge' thing. They post info on all the creatures that've been seen."

"Played," she murmured her interjection as Duncan referred to her. She didn't look quite miserable, but she still had no interest in looking at Mal.

At Mal's comment, there was no indication she'd heard it, as he wasn't speaking directly to her. Properly speaking, she should have been offended to be talked around like that, but it seemed she was fine with it. There was, however, a moment's where she looked up and said, "the drinking contest." They'd all been there for that. She paused and then looked to Duncan, frowning. "Your chubby paladin fell on her."

The frown remained as she looked back to the floor, seeming to zone out on the conversation as it continued.

That got a laugh out of him (until he remembered Ravi was real and his life was ruined, and then the laugh died with a flicker of something serious across his face which he quickly schooled away). "Yes, that he did."

He didn't respond to the comment about Theresa not being talkative, because he considered it kind of rude and it was hers to respond to if she wanted to, which she apparently did not.

Also, he was quickly distracted by the mention of the blog. His attention snapped to Mal. "Yeah, Rhys showed me the other day. Dude knows his shit."

And that reminded him of what he'd discussed with Rhys and Gabe right after. "Oh! I had this idea based on that, do you think you could code an app that'll match monster photos against a database to give people tips on how to defeat them?"

"Oh yeah, Val was there for that." He'd almost forgotten about it, though to be fair, he couldn't remember if her name had been mentioned during it. Too much to think about and remember lately, much of the fun RP wasn't on his mind anymore.

When Duncan praised him (without realizing it was him because Mal had still only told Rhys he ran the blog), Mal felt a little smug, though he managed to hide it (mostly).

"An app?" he repeated, considering the idea. "Like face-recognition for monsters sorta thing?" That would be doable, he thought. It'd be more immediately helpful than the website, since it could just pop the information up rather than requiring you search for it. "Yeah, I think so. Just gotta find the software an' adapt it, then put in all the pictures an' data."

That was promising. Duncan was pretty into this idea, it was fairly obvious from his body language. "Awesome, you handle the coding side and I can organize the data, just tell me how I need to format it."

Mal pondered further, biting into one of the loukoumades to provide him with a convenient pause while he chewed and swallowed.

"I'll hafta get back to you once I figure out the best way to organize it." He'd probably have to try out a few layouts and see which best fit an app, since most of his programming work had been done for computers, not phones. Still, he liked the idea.

But that also got him pondering the blog, and how useful it actually was. It wasn't a database. It didn't have a decent search function. It didn't track information very easily. "Shit, I'm gonna hafta remake the site."

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