milliways_bar | (no subject)

Martin probably doesn't have any of the answers that Knox is looking for, but this player desperately wants to see Knox's reaction to Raina's male friend. Especially if he finds out that Martin isn't lycanthropic.

So. Tall(ish), skinny (really), blond young man eating even more than Raina did some time ago.

Go ahead, ask him things.

Knox looks over, and certainly the way the beanpole is eating is oddly familiar.

"Hey."

[ooc: should note that mun is only on during EST business hours, so slowtime seems likely]

"Is for horses."

He looks up, breifly, and offers a nod. For Martin, that's down-right friendly.

"Funny man." Knox usually dishes out the sarcasm, but he can take it as well.

"Knox, Gotham City, 1989. And you?"

"Martin bastard son of Random, Rebma, fuck if I when it is on Earth as time moves differently in all the Shadows."

Martin exists in a constant state of annoyance and sarcasm, leavened with occasional complete inability to function when the coffee level gets too low.

Knox understands "bastard" and the profanity. Everything leaves him perplexed.

"Wanna try that again, Martin. You're not from Earth, right?"

"No, I'm from a place called Rebma."

He only sounds annoyed. Well, he is annoyed, but its like the Bat being spooky. Just the way things are,

"It, like the Earth in my universe, is a Shadow of a place called Amber. My dad, Random of whom I am the bastard son, is from Amber. This makes me an Amberite, not a human, and thus able to go from world to world via a thing called the Pattern. Time moves differently in all of the Shadows of Amber, and to explain any better we need onion rings."

Knox, not getting any of this, flags down a rat.

"Dustin, get me an order of onion rings." He turns back to Martin. "Fella, I don't get any of what you said. So let's try it again."

"Right."

Martin glances down at the rat,

"And a bottle of scotch. Full bottle."

When the rat heads off he says,

"Starting with the basics. My parents weren't married. I'm not human. My species is called Amberite. With me so far?"

"Hey, if you're gonna share that bottle, I think I can try to stay with you.

"But you're half not human, got it." Knox suspect that this guy - being? - is going to talk down to him. That's okay. He's been talked down to by everyone else over the years.

"No, I'm all not human. My mother was Rebmite. Rebmaite? Fuck. Mom was not from Earth either. Regardless, I'm Amberite. This is obvious because only Amberites can walk the Pattern."

Onion rings and scotch appear. Martin fills a tumbler and a shot, and takes the tumbler like a shot, although he does wait until he's handed the shot over to do so,

"This is where things get fucked up, okay? I'm going to explain it totally wrong because everything else makes my fucking head explode. These are onion rings."

They are, too, and he points at the one in the middle,

"Now pretend that they're all worlds, but only the onion ring in the very center is real. You can eat any of them, and they'd be filling, but only the onion ring that was real would affect all the rest. So if the real one was crispy, they'd all be crispy, and if the real one was soggy, they'd all be soggy.

Amber, in my universe, is the only "real" onion ring. It is the center of the Pattern, which is the polar opposite of the Courts of Chaos. Order, okay? Now. If you're an Amberite, you can walk the Pattern and it gives you the ability to go from Shadow to Shadow...that would be the other onion rings. If you're not Amberite, your head explodes when you try."

"Bub, my head would explode if I tried to repeat a word of that." Knox takes the outermost ring, and eats it, and then puts a shot of whiskey. "But I think I get it.

"That is, I get what you're saying. I'm not sure how something can be more real or less real. But the shadow walking...you can go from world to world.

"Funny choice of words, though. I remember something from school aobut a man named Plato, Said that everything was a shadow of the ideal version of itself. Or something. Never did get him, either."

"Yeah. Amber, according to Grandfather and most of the rest of the family, is that ideal version."

He shrugs, not really buying it himself. To Martin, the ideal would not have nearly so much fucked up about it. Like his family. That's fucked up,

"What's normal in Amber isn't out on the fringes, like Earth. We're faster, stronger, heal better, get sick a lot less, live damn near forever...dad is something like ten and a half thousand, and he's the youngest of his generation living."

"Whoa. So you're sort of like gods?" Oddly, the look in Knox's eyes seem to show that he isn't that uncomfortable with this notion.

"Only if you're thinking in the 'possibly insectous, dysfunctional' sort of way, like some of the ones I've heard about."

He waves a hand dismissivly,

"Some of us have magic type things, dad's one of them. I might if I bothered to learn, but really? I'm a fucking farmer, and proud to be so. We're not human, we're other. Uncle Julian is certain we're better, so are most of the rest that I've met, but."

Another shrug, and a not-quite sane smile. We're not talking Joker insane, we're just talking...seriously kinked,

"But seriously, who'd want to be a god? Grandfather created the Pattern, but not the results exactly. Great-Grandfather may have known what would happen, but he's mad."

Dworkin scares Martin to death.

"And the rest of the family just bums around waiting to see if Grandfather will ever die. Except me. I hope he lives forfuckingever so that I don't have to reaffirm that I don't want the fucking throne."

Knox, not one to indulge in much beyond Beer, takes another shot. This guy is clearly not entirely there. Though there must be some santity as well if he hasn't gone and declared himself a god anyway.

"No offense, but it sounds like your family is sorta messed up already. But given that it seems there are plenty of gods out there, it's just as well that you aren't one more in the mix."

"My introduction to my uncle Brand was when he stabbed me."

He informs the human, laughing a little,

"In the liver. At which point I met dad for the first time, by stumbling in here and falling at his feet nearly dead. Only it turned out he's from about five hundred years before I was born. So. Messed up? You think?"

Martin is insane. He's fucking a werewolf.

"Remind me never to visit your homeworld for the holidays." Knox is tempted to take one more shot, but he's got to keep his wits (such as they are) about him.

Knox should probably think fast, then, because Martin is still downing tumblers like they were water. It takes more than a bottle to get him wobbly,

"Never, ever visit Amber if you have a choice. Fuck, I haven't even been there, I walked the Pattern in Rebma and hid out."

"I don't leave Gotham if I have the choice. I'm sure not going to the center of the onion.

"I bet the hotels are lousy and the service is slow." Knox is not going to try to compete with the Amberite in a drinking contest, period.

"Good choice."

Knox is bright, then. Stupid Amberites.

"Probably! And they'd all look down their not inconsiderate noses at you for being human."

Martin knows whereof he speaks. He looks like a geek, and he's got his father's nose. Which is a good thing, because it means that its more prominant than his adam's apple.

"Yeah, that's not fun. And I already get a lot of that here."

"Just find something that you do that you can be proud of."

He's the youngest Amberite in existance, he does understand,

"And if anyone gives you shit about it, rub their faces in what you can do instead of trying to be what they are. I mean. Know what happened the last time I held a bow? I shot myself in the fucking foot. Twice."

Knox stifles a laugh.

"I am quite proud of being a human. Well, expect when I remember all the atrocities that humans have done to other humans, but that's another story.

"And I'm a darned good reporter. The best in Gotham." Knox is now feeling just a bit tipsy.

"Yeah, well, at least most of you don't eat each other. I've run into some sentient beings that do."

You can do a lot in sixty years.

"There you go, then. If people look down at you for being human, write an expose on them."

Martin...pours the guy another drink.

"Nahhhh, Lilly wouldn't go for that. She wants the paper here to respect people's privacy. So no snarky exposes. Yet." He tries to smile, the alcohol going to his head and belly alike.

"No more for me, Martin. One more and I will pass out. Don't tell anyone, but for a reporter, I am a lousy drinker."

"Your secret dies with me."

Or at least with Knox, as Martin is going to live a long, long, long time. His smile is kind (for Martin, anyway),

"You could always start a gossip rag? Just tack 'em anonymously to the john, or something? I don't know."

So Martin drinks the shot. Woo.

"That, sir, is beneath me. Yeah, I like to get at the truth, and make sure that all the rocks are turned over. But not just to gossip. That serves no purpose.

"And I never do anything anonymously. If you want people to respect the truth, you have to stand behind it.

"They have newspapers on Rebma?"

"Woah, sorry, didn't mean to offend. I've got the blood of a homicidal little fink running through my veins, and it makes me forget that good people exist, sometimes."

He really does look apologetic when he says that, holding up his hands in a "peace" sort of move,

"Haven't a clue. I spent my time ditching assholes and trying to get at the Pattern so that I could either get the fuck out of there or die trying."

Knox smiles a bit. "Hey, I'm used to that kind of attitude. At least you, unlike the staff at the Gazette and unlike all the politicians at home, can apologize and sound like you mean it.

"Gotta ask, though. Where'd you learn about gossip rags."

"Bumming around the Shadows. I spent a couple years on Earth, in New Jersey, learning about Earth medicine. Got my EMT certification, there."

And became an avid reader of the gossip rags. They're funny,

"And I don't, often, so take it as a special day."

Knox now chuckles a bit.

"It's just Jersey where I come from. Nothing new about it. And that's where Gotham is.

"How the heck did you pick our not so fair state, of all places?"

"It was out of the way."

He says with a snorted laugh,

"Not big enough to attract the family, big enough to have what I wanted. Dirty, ugly, and it allowed me to be just a guy without wondering too hard where I came from."

"You must have been in Newark then. Even Gothamites stay away from Newark."

"Sounds about right."

He grins,

"But very few people argue with someone who can bench-press a VW Bug to make a point. I was pretty much left alone."

"You...showed people what you could do?

"And they left you alone? I would hve expected the opposite." After all, this guy would be pretty good cpmpetition for Superman.

Knox is forgetting something important.

Superman is hot. Martin looks like a geek. Super-strong hot guys equal heroes. Super strong geeks tend to equal villains.

Martin says blandly,

"Well, you know, there is also that whole thing where I'm a right royal bastard who is as likely to point and laugh as help out if an idiot gets themselves into trouble."

"Ah." Knox supposes this is as likely as someone being an altruist.

"Martin, no offense, but it sounds like oyu have one messed up life. Guess the Bar is almost a relief for you."

"You have no idea."

He says with a snort,

"The bar is a relief for me. Bar, the people in it who are not my family. Yeah."

"Yeah, sometimes it';s good to get away from family. Evne when they aren't gods." Knox, now feeling the effects of his drinks, pushes chair from table.

"Bleargh. I think I need some fresh air. Good talking to you."

"Later, man. 'Ware the werewolves in the woods."

Because humans, especially drunk ones, should be reminded of such things.