milliways_bar | (no subject)

"Say something interesting."

He sounds petulent.

"I am sorry, Senor," El says.

He's not.

"How perfect."

He stands.

"You'll not get far here, not like this."

"I won't?" El asks. "Por que no?"

"The key here is the people. The most have been about so long that they jump at a new face, spill their stories in hopes of the given and take, to learn any thing they can to break the monotony. The key here is the people, and the power all of them hold at the tips of their fingers, the stories they have to tell, the things they have to offer in exchange for so little."

"Mmmmm." El drums his fingers on the side of his glass. "You offer me nothing for my story," he observes."

"I have a pet lizard?"

He rolls his eyes.

"Incidentally, I paint portraits for money."

El considers. "I have never had a lizard."

"It's here somewhere."

He pats the pockets of his robes down.

El waits patiently.

He eventually cheats- he didn't have a lizard- and pulls one out of shadow.

It's an intriguing shade of fuschia, and has a forked tongue that it flickers out. In all, the creature is as long as a man's thumb.

"His name is Bennett."

"Is it poisonous?" El asks. He doesn't reach for it, yet.

"Only if you eat it."

He strokes the creature's head.

"Toxins in the liver."

El nods, "I am not fond of liver. Too salty."

"Then?"

He sets his hand on the bar, and lets the lizard scuttle along to where El is sitting.

"I kill bad people."

El nods and offers out his hand to the lizard.

"What makes you the person to say who's right?"

The lizard skitters up his hand and starts climbing his arm.

El watches it and then his eyes go back to Dworkin.

"I only kill men who have killed many before. Men of the Cartels."

"You'd best not meet Random's sweetheart, then."

Amberites plus vengeance equals so not good.

"Why do you kill the men of the cartel?"

"Because," El says. "I am not a good man."

His tone is dry.

"Do you need me to point out the flaw in that to you? Or have you guessed it for yourself?"

Just sayin'

El shakes his head and rises. "Thank you for the gift. What does it need to eat?"

"Meat, cooked or raw. Small chunks, the half the size of a fingernail. If there's none let it loose and it will get crickets or flies for itself."

"Thank you."

El heads towards the door.