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[OOM: A drunken challenge leads to a drunken acceptance. One done boldly, one done carefully. Guess which one was more fun.]

This is a space pirate who is entirely too pleased with herself. She's just about finished the bottle of sake, but it's too good not to keep going with.

Not only did Ryoko get to steal stuff because she wanted to, she got to steal really famous stuff, and there was no way she'd get caught.

She hasn't changed out of what she wore to the tower, incidentally, so there's a few bullet holes and a bit of blood Ryoko hasn't noticed yet. Come say hi, she'll buy anyone a drink (or many, even.)

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Cyrus is seated at a quiet table, reading, when he spots someone he hasn't seen of late. "Ryoko..."

"Cyrus?" Ryoko grins happily at him. "It's been a while! How are you?" She will never really get used to this question being silly for a dead person. Plus she's been drinking.

"Not bad, all things considered. My Christmas was actually quite good." He closes his book and comes closer. "And yourself?"

"More good than bad, finally," and here she giggles. "I just came back from a job and I'm celebrating. Join me?"

"It seems I am a bit late to the party. But I rarely pass up the chance to share a drink. What's today's poison?" He takes a seat.

"Sake, if you like, but whatever you like, really. I'm buying!" Even if the hour dictates non-alcoholic, although that might be less fun.

The hour is not impediment if you are dead, Cyrus might say.

"Sake...I can't remember the last time I had sake. Maybe at a dinner for some visiting Japanese magnates we were trying to convince to give us a large donation.

"I'm game."

She beams, pouring him some from her open bottle and refilling her own cup. "It's my favorite. There are a couple of things the Juraians make that are good, but for Earth stuff, this is great."

He takes his glass and sips it. "Hmmm. Strong. But not without some flavor." He's still a scotch man, but can broaden his horizons. "Juraians...an alien race, I assume?"

"They're human- mostly, but from another planet. Very into trees, Juraians. Very stuffy and over-dignified." She scowls a little, thinking of a certain princess. Very carefully not thinking of anyone else.

"So what have you been up to, anything?"

"Went to a Christmas party. With a date." He smiles a bit. "I wasn't really expected to do either, but I'm glad I did."

Ryoko winks at him. "Sounds like fun." She sips her sake. "I officially missed Christmas, I think. Doesn't make any sense to me anyway, really. Got a book from a friend, though."

"I don't know it if makes sense to anyone, to be honest. My parent's parish priest would disagree, but it's been a very long time since I was in a church anyway." He almost went to the services here, but decided it was not a good idea. "Not that I object to parties or gifts. Though everyone seems to think I need books." Which he does.

She's puzzled, but doesn't really want to ask what the heck Christmas has to do with churches anyway. At least not right now. "Do you know about the Internet?" she asks a bit vaguely.

"OF course. We have DSL for all students and faculty, and we in the process of adding WiFi. It's either the greatest boon to mankind since the printing press, or the worst invention since the atom bomb." Or both. He's smiling, and on his second glass (though he will slow down now).

"Y'think it would help me make sense out of what you people are talking about most of the time?" Apparently the sheer volume of human idiom has finally gotten to her.

"No. It would only confuse you more. There's too much information in raw form. " He himself found it confusing much of the time (and he never got Facebook, or blogs, or any of the whole social networking thing).

"Is there anything specific that's confusing you?"

"Specific? Not really. There's just a lot of things humans seem to already know about; nonsense and phrases that don't make any sense, but they still mean something. You know?" Maybe she should slow down on the sake as well, as that was probably incomprehensible.

"I know very well, Ryoko. I was the dean of a college where pretty much every student spoke a language I had trouble understanding. In fact, I was more able to talk with the maintenance staff than the bulk of the students." He wonders what happened to Eli Navarro, who seemed more down to earth than anyone getting a degree.

"That helps, actually. I was starting to think it was the whole 'stuck in a cave for seven hundred years' thing. If other Earth people have that kind of trouble, I don't feel so lost." Still no fun to miss out on a joke, though.

"At least you have an excuse. I lived through all the cultural changes. I married a woman who was young enough to be on the cutting edge 20 years after me. Honestly, it made me feel old." He takes another sip. "Sometimes. Sometimes I was glad not to know."

"Eh, who needs it anyway." Ryoko is in no mood for melancholy. "Let 'em have their stupid metaphors and whatever." Happily drunk means not worrying too much about the past, or conversational niceties for that matter. She's normally a little more polite.

"Guess what I stole!"

"The Ark of the Covenant!" If you are going to be wrong, be extravagantly so.

"No- the what?" That's the kind of thing she means! She shakes her head. "Nevermind. You know what they keep in the tower of London?"

He realizes a bit belatedly that he just proved her point. Maybe she needs a bit of a course on Earth pop culture. "The crown jewels? You stole the..." His jaw drops. He shouldn't approve of such a crime. But something that gutsy gets a bit of admiration.

She giggles. "Twice! My world and another one. Well, I didn't take them all. Just a few pieces. And some I'm going to put back." Of course there's a reason, but it's firmly behind yesterday's alcohol haze.

"I got shot at a little the first time."

"Put them back? Surely, if you went to the effort to get past all that security, you have a buyer or some reason to take them, right?" His mind is still clear enough to ask the annoying questions.

"He doesn't want the whole thing, just certain stones off it. Once we take those off, I'll put them back. More or less." She's still wildly amused by the idea of putting them back in the wrong worlds.

"Who's the buyer? Or am I better off not knowing?" He must admit that this is very interesting, like it's a caper film from the 60s.

"Don't tell anyone, 'cause I think it's supposed to be a surprise. You know that Miniver Cheevy guy? He was a mouse for a while?" As if that would make a difference.

"...a mouse." He can believe that, for some reason. He also recognizes that name but dismisses it. "And you had him sneak in as a mouse?"

"No. He was a mouse when everyone in the bar got turned into animals. I was an owl, but that's beside the point." She pauses, trying to remember what the heck she was on about.

"Sorry. I just went in and took it. The crown, I mean. Only had to sneak in my world's London, because I still do business there."

She does request coffee from the bar. Not making sense was starting to get annoying.

She was whatnow? He blissfully managed to miss that. And agrees that it's not worth mentioning.

"That must have been difficult, though. They have really good security there. Those jewels are priceless. And highly symbolic."

"I have certain advantages. It's probably great security against humans, but not me." Stealing priceless relics was what she was best at.

"I know you can fly, but what other advantages do you have?" The sake has left the man very mellow as well as curious.

She winks at him, then sinks through the chair and disappears into the ground.

After about thirty seconds, she reappears in her chair again with a flicker.

"Those tricks come in handy."

"That's..." He wonders if he's had too much to drink, and opts to believe his eyes. "How is that even possible? How can you make yourself immaterial?"

"I don't know the physics of it, but knowing my 'mother', it has something to do with dimensional shift." Ryoko shrugs. "She can do it too, but so could Kagato, so maybe it's the gems."

She holds out a wrist, where a little red jewel seems implanted in the skin.

"I'll have to take your word for it," he says while noting the jewel. "And it's obvious you can do it. Can you pass through anything?"

"So far. There are some barriers I can't pass through, but they're too high-tech for most planets to have. Just Washuu and Kagato can make them, really." She finishes her coffee, feeling better.

"So...I assume you got paid well to take the jewels?" He will let her ghosting skills be a given.

"Enough to make it worth my time." The fun alone was worth the time. "But more about you now. How did your Christmas date go?"

"Reasonably well, given that I'm dead, that she's thirty years younger than me, and that I was surprisingly nervous." He's not shy about admitting such things.

"Thirty years is a long time?" She's almost sure it is, for humans. "What's to be nervous about?"

"My last wife was younger than me, and things didn't exactly work out well. Never mind that I'm not really sure what I should be looking for. Or if I should be looking." Not to mention that to some degree, Madolyn is also as damaged as he is. "But thirty years is a pretty big gap. I'm more than old enough to be her father."

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