milliways_bar | (no subject)

Hm. Now there's a familiar face- and a familiar activity. Quinn makes his way over to the Bar in search of a replacement icepack, and smiles. "Hullo, Isuzu," he says, placing the old pack to one side.

She's a little jumpy to say in the least.

Dark brown eyes land immediately on the wound Quinn had and narrow.

"He get you too?"

Not exactly the most friendly of greetings but, you know, she wasn't necessarily happy at the moment. And if the God had attacked a friend, well, she didn't know what she was going to do.

Ice pack is adjusted to cover the wound completely. No use sharing injuries.

"Only if by 'he' you mean my horse, Ross," Quinn says. "He hasn't been misbehaving towards strangers, has he? Been trying to break him of the habit."

Okay, so her question had been answered.

She shook her head.

"Horses don't leave fingernail gouges."

And besides that, horses tended to like her because of the curse.

Quinn eyes her for a long moment. "I can excuse Ross biting me," he says neutrally. "Got a hard time believing someone would have a good excuse to attack you, though."

Ahh, the battle of the neutral tones and faces. Fun!

"You'd be surprised."

She replies as she sets the heated pack on the bar, along with the tissues and gets a new ice pack. Along with the scratches is a bruise taking shape on the same side.

"In his case, anything he can think of and rationalize, he'll do."

Well, she wins, because he goes from 'neutral' to 'grr' at that. At least, the facial expression does. The voice? Still pretty flat.

"Sounds like a charming fellow," he says. "I don't suppose Security knows about it? Or did it not happen here?"

"Security heard and will hear nothing."

The mun can tell Isuzu wins at poker faces. Actually, Isuzu playing poker would be an amusing thing to see.

Isuzu comments on the reply and notices the reaction. Not much escapes her, she's rather observant.

"He's gone anyways, he left through the door."

There's an irritated note when speaking of the door, oh she had seen it but, taunting signs tend to make people want to hurt inanimate objects.

Quinn's eyebrows go up at the first statement, but at the second he nods. "All right," he says. "Suppose that does moot the whole point, then..."

Forcibly, he turns his attention to other subjects. "Beyond that, how've you been? Haven't seen you since that bit the other day."

She's also very good at dodging that particular topic too. Isuzu's a clever pup sometimes.

"Still bound. Managed to figure out how this...bar thing works."

She gestures slightly with an incline of her head to the bar.

"Apparently, this is programmed to give people what they need, only, you have to be specific."

She turns her head a little to look at him better, the area beneath her left eye is a little swollen from the scuffle.

"And have you been well?"

Quinn nods. "Someone introduced me to it early on," he says. "It's a wonder, isn't it? Never seen anything like it before in all my life..."

But he smiles, and nods. "I've been pretty well, yeah. Waiting on a business deal to go through, outside the Bar. And I had a hell of a stroke of luck the other day- my best mate from home turned up."

She inclines her head again to agree, she's never seen something like the bar either.

When he mentions a friend, her attention is piqued in a good way.

"What is his name?"

If it was who she thought it was...

"Creedy," Quinn says, pulling a photograph from one of his pockets. Someone loaned him a wizarding camera- he's still startled by that- and he managed to get one picture in of Creedy before the other man stole the camera away. The picture's a good one, even if the light-eyed man does look a bit gobsmacked at having been caught on film without warning.

Well, that was who it was, she hadn't caught his name, though she had given hers out. Isuzu peers closer for a moment before a slight smile came on to her face.

"Ah, that one. He nearly ran into me when he first arrived."

She looks up.

"His clothing was similiar to yours, I figured you knew him. He knew your name when I mentioned it."

Quinn laughs. "Sorry about that," he says. "Yeah, we've known each other a good fourteen years now. Pretty well everyone from the castle back home is going to have the same sort of clothes- they're all we've got. Hope he didn't cause any trouble, though?"

(OOC: have gone all exhausted. stupid RL. Slowtime okay?)

[ooc: Fine with me, have a good rest!]

"As far as I know, he caused no trouble. A bit skittish but, I was the same way when I was here. He seemed to be rather defensive of you."

A head tilt, she's curious.

"Was he, now?" That gets a smile. "We look out for each other. I swear, some days I think he thinks he's my mum. Don't let him know I said that."

That was a little amusing for some reason.

"Known each other long have you?"

She asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Close to half my life," Quinn says. "He's as close as I've ever had to a brother."

That...was a long time.

Then again, she'd known some of the people in her family as long.

...Hatori even longer despite her wishes.

"Must have been nice having someone who was like family."

There's a dry note in there, she's not meaning to be bitchy sounding, she's just a little jealous....not that she'd admit it.

Quinn looks at her a moment, something sharp in his eyes that fades away quickly.

"I saw Mum die when I was twelve," he says quietly. "The first dragon to rise did it. Wasn't much more than a year before Dad and the rest of my kin went, too. I take my family where I can find it."

Her expression quickly changes as well as she directs her attention back to the bar, trading in the ice pack for a bandage that she placed over and medi-tapes over it.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

She sounds sorry and yet, the closed expression on her face suggests a past of her own.

Oh, yes, Quinn's seen that expression before. He's dug too many graves not to recognise the look of a survivor, even if the thing survived isn't necessarily the same.

"Thanks," he says quietly. And then: "Say- can I get you a drink? Or something?"

It seems fair enough, under the circumstances.

"Water is fine, and you don't have to pay."

Survivor yes, of the kind he might be thinking of? No.

Isuzu's eyes darken slightly with the brief memory of a past she'd much rather forget at the moment.

"As you like," he says. Wrong or right, he's got no way of knowing- but he knows better than to press.

"I think, at this point, the Americans have a tradition of saying 'other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?'" Quinn notes as the water order materialises. "Since I doubt either of us gets the reference properly, shall we agree to put the last bit of the conversation to one side and come up with something else?"

For once, the mun is using the icon as one of confusion rather than her pup's supposed "oh sh*t" look.

She takes a small drink from the water and inclines her head. She really has no idea about Americans and what a "Mrs. Lincoln" had to do with anything about experiencing a broken family home but, oh well.

"That's fine."

More in the nature of conversational segues away from excessively painful personal moments than anything, really.

"Right, then," says Quinn. He hadn't had anything prepared in the way of the next topic, so he grabs the first thing to come to mind. "I'd been wondering- what, ah... that bit with the shape-changing. What's that about?"

A rather dry expression comes over her face as she takes another thing and considers how to word it properly.

Well, she can't think of anything and decides to be blunt as always.

"It's a curse."

"Huh," says Quinn, thinking. That could be interpreted a lot of ways. Most- no, let's be honest, all- are through the prisms of stories he's either read to the children, or had read years ago.

"How'd it happen? There's no such things as curses in my world, at least that I know of."

A thoughtful expression crosses her face.

In all honesty? She has no damned idea, only that she's been cursed with several others.

"It's been there generations before mine. I don't know how it began or how it ends."

Which is the reason she's always in trouble, because she's poking around where she shouldn't be in trying to figure it out.

Quinn nods. "Runs in the family, then? That must be rough."

He's suddenly a bit glad that there was nothing to inherit from either of his own parents.

"Apparently so and it has it's problems."

Like only being allowed to be treated by the family doctor unless it happened again or can't hug/hold anyone of the opposing sex unless they were in the curse.

Being tied to the abusive and damn near insane God?

Yeah, rough was a word to describe it.

"No curses where you're from?"

"I can imagine," Quinn murmurs, shaking his head.

"No. No curses at all. Not unless you count the dragons as one, and they're more of a... I dunno, a pestilence, really."

"That could be another word for half the people affected in my family."

She mutters, not meaning to say that aloud but, oh well.

"Have you found a way to rid yourself of the Dragons?"

If there was food or something they hated, maybe she could try it with Hatori...~~And her mun scolds her pup for that thought.~~

Quinn lets out a small bark of a laugh. "None that did the trick," he says. "Not really. We've killed 'em in the past, but there's always been more of 'em. Bloody things breed like rabbits. Explosives down the throat usually work. If you're careful, anyway."

Explosives huh.

And for some reason, Dragons coupled with the term "breeding like Rabbits" set off some really....scarring images into her mind all things considered.

"Any weaknesses to take advantages of?"

She was trying to help think of something.

He wishes, he wishes, that he didn't have the answer to this practically at the ready. But he's been asked the question a lot of late.

"If they do, it's nothing that I know of," he says. "They've got to feed- they're not magical- but they can survive a damned long time on nothing but ashes. Starvation just makes 'em desperate. I don't know of anything else that'd count as a real weakness, but I've never cut one open to go looking through the innards."

Okay, ew. Cutting something open didn't seem to be a good idea.

"There isn't a weakness on the Dragon I know, except that he's blind in one eye."

That could be a weakness but, the man had other resources available, damn him.

Yeah. Especially since dead dragons smell awful, where Quinn comes from. Even to other dragons.

"One eye's enough to cause trouble," Quinn mutters. "Got to keep the one eye busy, and assume he's got another where you can't see it, or he'll find a way to catch you off your guard."

Wasn't that the truth.

She had a harder time distracting him than anyone else she'd ever met. Except Haru when he was obsessing.

Then it was a pain in the ass.

"Have you thought of shooting them in the eyes? Or are they a hard target or their healing keeps them from being affected?"

Dragons were interesting subjects, if you didn't know them.

"Oh, we've thought of it," Quinn says. "But they're fast, our dragons. Nimble, too. Damn things can keep up with an attack helicopter in full flight. It's a bloody lucky sniper who can get himself set up for a shot like that without being smelled and ripped apart first. But that's a good idea, the eye thing."

"Take out the eye and they're down a good portion of offense."

And the times where she had watched too many video games while visiting Haru were kicking in. Hmm, interesting.

"Maybe overwhelm their senses somehow? What is stronger, sight or smell?"

"Couldn't tell you, unfortunately," Quinn says. "I'm not a soldier. Never been close enough to one for long enough to tell- and nobody who's been that close for long survived to tell the tale."

His expression twitches for a moment. "They see well, though. They've got good daytime vision- and damned good nighttime vision. But there was one who tracked a caravan back to its fortress after all the people in the caravan were dead. DUnno whther that was smell or sight."

Well, there went that plan.

She falls silent for a moment and takes another small drink. She can tell her wounds are healing by the fact that her cheek has started to throb.

"Hmm. No idea then."

"'s all right," Quinn says. "I appreciate the thought. If you read English, I can show you the book later- I've compiled everything I know about the creatures, best I can manage from memory."

She's studied English before, still has problems reading it but, she thinks she might be able to handle it.

"Alright, that sounds interesting. I may be able to find something out through the notes."

She's sounding genuinely interested in research.

"All right, then," says QUinn. "That should do pretty nicely. With any luck, it won't be too much to translate all at once."

"I may have a few difficulties, it isn't my native language."

She cautions but, hell, she's determined enough to get it dammit.

Quinn nods. "I can explain the unclear bits, if you need me to," he offers.