zenderael_rl | [Gunnar/Noelle/Anais]

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[Gunnar/Noelle/Anais] - X-DAV Tea Time

Who: Gunnar, Noelle, and Anais
When: Let's say Friday, April 8
Where: X-DAV headquarters
Before/After: n/a
Warnings: To be determined

It was unfortunate that Gunnar had been on his way to restock when he came to this strange new world. The poisons he had with him were precious few, potions even less so, and then there was his tea...

He looked at the remains of tea leaves in his tin canister. It was enough for one pot. Only one. They were plants he had been told were not native to this strange, new world. He barely frowned as he helped himself to the kitchen supplies, having already been shown the ways of the gas stove by Zale. The rogue had his uses.

Soon, the kettle was whistling, and he poured the steaming water into ceramic mugs and their strange little pictures. It was different. Everything had been so different. Gunnar missed his old clothes, too. Jeans were stiff and uncomfortable, and so many of the shirts had images and words on them. His current was mostly black with the word "aggro" written in white. Gunnar had no idea of its meaning, only that it was the most plain one he could find out of what Zale had given him.

He brought the tea in on a tray into the lounge area and set it on the coffee table. "A bit of home," he offered.

But maybe he shouldn't be calling it that.

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Sip. Pause. Ear pieces. He watched Anais' phone vibrate. He could hear it, too. It would have been more than enough sound to be heard by the enemy.

"Can it be set to ring only through the ear piece?"

At the mention of ear pieces, Anais strongly resisted the urge to groan, taking a sip of her tea to cover it. There was more? Why did there have to be more things?

"I suspect I may regret asking, but what exactly is an 'ear piece'?" She was fairly certain no one had mentioned ear pieces to her when they had handed her the phone. When had devices gotten so complicated, anyway, and need all these little bits? She supposed this was quicker than dragon mail, but still! In her mind, it was too complicated to be worth it.

At Gunnar's question, Noelle looked at him, then looked to Anais when she followed up with another. Noelle ended the call (Anais would find the missed call notice on her screen), then removed the ear piece from her pocket and briefly held it out for the both of them to see. Small, with a loop to go over her ear. She slipped it on, tapping against it once, then adjusted the settings of her phone.

"Call me," she said to no one in particular, though she did hesitate a moment in her breathing as she realized that command may have come out too...commanding for Anais...

Siiip.

(Her phone would not ring, nor vibrate. The only sign that there was an incoming call at all would be the notice that lit up her screen.)

Gunnar shared the same instincts as Noelle and responded to the call swiftly. He had his phone ready in hand in a blink, dialing her number from his contacts list. (And every contact was complete with a picture he had taken when none of them were looking.)

He looked to her expectantly, waiting for a ring or a rumble. (Or a song, as many of them had. Gunnar had thought it a kind of music-based sorcery at first.)

Nothing but silence.

"Perfect," he said.

Sadly, Anais was too new to the phone to have the same instincts as Noelle and Gunnar with relation to how quickly the phone was in their hands and adjustments made. When the screen of Noelle's phone simply lit up, producing no other sound or vibration, even she had to (reluctantly) admit she was impressed. She wasn't a hunter or an assassin, but she knew there was a benefit to silence, especially when monsters were involved. Sound, after all, tended to ruin a surprise attack.

"That's incredibly useful." Still, that ear piece... she shifted a little closer to stare at it, frowning. "How well does that stay in place?" Perhaps it stayed better for Noelle, as she was a hunter and not in the direct line of combat, but for a melee combatant like herself and potentially Gunnar, Anais wasn't so sure a simple loop around the ear would cut it. Perhaps Zale would know if there was anything better, though it almost killed her a little to even think about asking him anything regarding this world.

"It has been secure in the two weeks I've been using it." Noelle removed the ear piece and held it out for Anais to try herself. Such concerns over sharing something that had been in another's ear were absent in Noelle. Her tolerance for the "dirty" was a lot higher than most. It came with living out in the wilderness more often than not.

"But for a close combatant, I cannot say," she added, returning her attention to her tea. "There are different makes. If the shops here are no longer open, you can search them on the internet."

Gunnar had already familiarized himself with browsing, a little, but shopping was an entirely different matter. With Noelle's suggestion, he tried to search for such things as he had once been shown, and was immediately overwhelmed.

"... So many," he said, and he closed the browser. "Tomorrow I will search the city." He looked to Anais. "I will let you know what I find."

Anais carefully took the ear piece from Noelle, absently turning it over in her hands before absently raising it to test it out on her own ear. It didn't feel very secure to her as she tossed her head a bit, but, then again, she wasn't certain anybody in Fall City had ever anticipated wearing one of these while trying to slay monsters.

"Please do," she said as she handed the ear piece back to Noelle, returning to her mug of tea. Ah, familiarity. "The last thing I want to have to worry about while fighting monsters is something in my ear that goes flying off to who knows where." Especially if said monster was anything like Kharveryos. She had not been present for it, no, but if it had made an appearance, who knew what else might before the worlds got themselves back in order?

She took the earpiece and, along with her phone, placed them both back into her cardigan's pocket. The phone weighed the piece of clothing down considerably.

There was a comfortable silence she almost felt hesitant to break before she asked, mug comfortably cupped in her hands, "Have you visited the southeast part of the city? Either of you."

Gunnar returned to his tea, eyes closed and enjoying the peace that came with Anais' phone having been dealt with.

"I have not," he said. He looked to Noelle. "Bastan." As if that explained it.

"What does Bastan have to do with the southeast part of the city?" she asked, frowning. She hadn't truly had time to go anywhere since she had been here, too confused by the world she had been thrust into to really focus on anything else at the time, and this was the first time she had heard of Bastan being even remotely related to part of Fall City.

She blinked. Anais hadn't heard?

No one had told the paladin?

"A section of Bastan is in the southeast portion of this city," she said, looking at Anais with mild surprise.

Gunnar stared into his mug. One last sip left. He took it, releasing a quiet breath after.

"What do you think it means?"

Bastan. Bastan was here, somehow. Why hadn't anybody told her? Had they and she just hadn't heard? Still... Her city was here, not all of it, but a piece of it. What did that mean for back home? Was that part of the city just gone? Erased from Zenderael?

"Perhaps things are merging." And that was certainly an unsettling thought. "If we came here, and the monsters are doing so, as well, perhaps the cities crossing over is the next phase." The next phase of what, though?

"Merging. Returning. I do not know, and X-DAV will not say." She finished her cup, then placed it down on the table.

His voice grew softer.

"Which would you wish for?"

"Neither." The answer was an obvious one to the paladin, who was in the process of raising her mug to her lips once again. "This world is not prepared for the things that come from ours." Nor were they suited to deal with things from this one, though Anais thought that went without saying. "But something had to have started this. I cannot believe that this simply started occurring on its own."

Noelle glanced at Anais. Neither, yes. That would be her choice as well, but that option was no longer available to them.

"Why?" she asked, eyes still on Anais. "Nature is full of phenomenons. Perhaps it is not a matter of what started it, but who is guiding it, and for what reason."

Because as far as Noelle was concerned, there was someone guiding it. That someone looked like her benefactors, placing them at the food festival that night, expecting something to show up. Had they expected the Spenta, too?

Gunnar's attention fell on Noelle again. "Our creators?" He was unable to say it without an edge of disdain.

Anais rolled her eyes a little at that. "I highly doubt the people who supposedly created us have any desire to see our worlds merge in such a manner. From my understanding of the situation, to them, it was simply a game. If that is the case, then guiding it is most likely out of the question for them." Truthfully, this whole situation angered her, no matter how she thought of it. Lives were most certainly not a game, and the very idea that someone had created her for their own twisted amusement absolutely disgusted her. Who would do something like that? "The moment they saw a real monster for the first time, I can only imagine they ran and hid."

Noelle didn't disagree with her words.

"Not them, no. Likely they are as uninformed as ourselves in this area." She paused, closed her eyes, then opened them again, looking at the edge of the table. "The ones guiding it belong to or have ties with X-DAV, I think. They knew, that night when Kharveryos arrived, that Kharveryos would arrive. Not it, specifically, perhaps, but something. Which is why Roman, Zale and I were sent there."

"They guided us..." And for what purpose? Amusement? But Gunnar closed his eyes, trailing off to let that matter drop. He could not deny their arguments, especially Noelle's.

But there was something else in her words. "You have doubts." About X-DAV.

"You do not?" Anais asked, raising an eyebrow at Gunnar. "You did not once think it was incredibly convenient for someone to know exactly where you were and offer you shelter?" Anais herself had only agreed to Zale's proposal simply because it had been convenient. She had nowhere else to go, no other way of knowing what anything was in this place. She supposed she could have gone with Nadir. However, she barely knew him; asking him for help like that had seemed incredibly rude to her. Besides, just because she had taken X-DAV's deal didn't mean she trusted them.

"They must know something other than what they tell us." Even Zale's description of why X-DAV was taking them in had been painfully vague, probably only what X-DAV had told him to say, and it had seemed far too simple when he had told her why they were letting them stay here. Kill monsters in exchange for all of this? No. It seemed far too easy. There had to be something beneath all of that. Noelle, she thought, knew it, too.

Noelle nodded after Anais, a physical display of agreement with her words. Her eyes slid to Gunnar. "It is possible that they mean to use our combat experience to handle the monsters, enabling them the ability to focus on something they deem more worthy of their attention."

A phase, Anais had said. The more she thought on it, the more Noelle found herself agreeing with her choice of term. "They feign ignorance to the public. I do not trust them. Not wholly."

"We have been sheltered, fed, clothed, and taught how to survive here," he said. He turned to meet them both in the eye, glancing from one to the other to do so.

"These are not gestures to be taken lightly."

"I do not know about you," she said after a moment, eyeing Gunnar over the rim of her mug of tea, "but I agreed to this simply because I had nowhere else to go. That does not mean I trust them blindly."

Noelle simply blinked back at him. "It is a contractor relationship." X-DAV provided for their needs, they provided a service to X-DAV. Neither had any obligation to trust the other, and the degrees to which they did were their own choice.

"Irrelevant," he said, standing up. His managed to keep his tone level, but the response had come too quickly. "I will not repay their efforts with this kind of discussion."

The hunter, he understood. What use did they have for others? But the paladin... no, of course she would not know. They helped their own and cast out anyone who disagreed. They had grown up with the luxury of choosing who to trust. Of being trusted by most.

But any anger directed at them died with another realization: that, too, may have been a fabrication of his creator.

He clenched his jaw, reddened and turned to leave.

"No. I apologize," he said before remembering he had not voiced the thoughts he was sorry for. "I... have to go."

Noelle had said it was a contractor relationship, but, truthfully, Anais wondered if it was even that. It was a lot to provide them with if all they were doing was killing the monsters that may or may not appear. Monster hunting was hardly simple, of course, but it still seemed like quite a bit to provide them with just to kill monsters.

And then Gunnar stood, and she frowned, watching him apologize for something he hadn't even said. Perhaps, she thought, this sort of conversation was best kept away from people who weren't nearly as suspicious of their "benefactors" as she was. She would have to see about getting Nadir's phone number from Zale afterwards, of course. Nadir had seemed reasonable. He hadn't gone along with them, after all, when Zale had approached them both.

"Hydrik," she said after a moment, "if the conversation makes you uncomfortable, we can always change topics. I do not believe either of us would be offended if you said as such." She and Noelle would just have to talk about it later away from him.

Monster hunting is what Noelle would have done regardless, so it took very little convincing for her to continue accepting X-DAV's hospitality. This very topic had come up between her and Jordan, a tack on, a thought.

To endear them, perhaps? To bribe. To instill a sense of loyalty or responsibility -- I helped you, now you help me.

She watched Gunnar with a small amount of hesitant curiosity. This was a side of him foreign to her. Of course, unexpected, their relationship was purely business, but to see the boy uncomfortable, hesitant in his own right, when Noelle was accustomed to quick and concise, no doubt at all in his words, it was -- curious.

The paladin's response surprised Gunnar, and what should have been pacifying was only fueling his bubbling doubts. Before, only the thoughts of a girl who didn't even exist had brought him to question himself, but at least it was a question of different, but visible, paths to take.

"There is no need," he said. "Not on my account."

There was no excuse he could think of, so he offered none and made for the door to return to his room.

That was... unexpected, and Anais could only stare after him in confusion.

At least she had enough sense to wait until Gunnar was out of the room before turning to Noelle, and asking, "Was it something I said?"

"Yes," she said simply, for it was the truth. "It appears he takes offense to our lack of full trust in X-DAV."

"Ah." She supposed she couldn't blame Gunnar for that, of course. If Anais had been a more trusting sort, she might have been offended, as well. As it was, however, Anais had learned a long time ago that simply trusting people blindly bit you in the end. She couldn't remember how or why she had learned that lesson, something that confused her the more she tried to remember why she felt that way, but she supposed that if she did trust everybody she came across, she might be dead by now. "I was unaware he would not take it that well."

"I, as well," she admitted, though that was because she had no idea, really, what kind of person Gunnar was.

"I have an errand that takes me to the Bastan in this city," she said, finding a change of topic to something she could adequately address more preferable. "Would you like to accompany me?"

Secretly, Anais was quite grateful for the subject change, and she gave Noelle a little smile. "I would. I admit, I am curious about Bastan somehow being in this world."

Noelle wondered if there was any paladin who wouldn't be curious about it.

She stood from her chair, gathering the mugs as she did so. "I will meet you downstairs in five minutes," she said, taking them to the sink to be washed. Her bow and quiver were already in the same room, propped up against the wall right below the window.

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[Gunnar/Noelle/Anais] - X-DAV Tea Time

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