zenderael_rl | [Gunnar/Noelle/Anais]

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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"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.

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

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