(watching the door)

[mechanicalswans]

Weyland would have you know he is not brooding.

He doesn't do that anymore. He doesn't need to; he's a happily married man with a viable plan for world destruction. No, what he is doing is simply leaning against the bar and watching the door, maybe studying it for the energies of transportation in the same way that they studied the window for the energies of destruction. He already knows how to make portals, but the energies here are different, that's all.

And he hasn't taken up smoking again to calm his nerves, either--no, he'd simply found some in his room, and is indulging in a bit of harmless nostalgia over a glass of Atlantean. Remembering his world the way it had been, and imagining how it will be once they've remade it.

And this has nothing to do with the fact that he hasn't seen Loki in a week now. He isn't doomed to spend all eternity wondering where his current wife has gone off to. For one thing, his world doesn't have eternity. For another... well. He'll think of something.

Distractions are welcome.

[open forever!]

Comments

[destroy_restart]

"If they have TV," Tower says, "they must have technology to make it with, and that means some sort of crafting process. And they might have war without armour."

[mechanicalswans]

"And electricity," he says. "To power the cameras. Or some other form of energy that wouldn't risk electrocuting them all... because after all, how would squid go through the preliminary stages of electrical discovery without killing themselves? Unless they're some sort of mutant squid who can survive such things."

[destroy_restart]

"There are enough sea creatures that use a bit of electricity," Tower says.

[mechanicalswans]

"But not in the amounts one would need to power a film crew," he says. "Not to start out with, anyway. They would have to have experimented. Look at human experiments with... well, with any new technology they didn't understand. Radiation. Flight."

[destroy_restart]

"Yes, they usually grilled themselves with it at first," Tower says, unconcerned. "Never stopped the tenacious little bastards."

[mechanicalswans]

"I can imagine the squid doing the same thing," he says. "But possibly more dangerously, being in water. Unless what they use for electricity is unlike what humans use--who's to say? It could be completely different. Life in the squid world."

[destroy_restart]

"Grilled squid," Tower says, momentarily distracted. "Nice!"

[mechanicalswans]

"Now I want calamari," he says with a quiet chuckle, "but I don't know whether it would be cannibalism. Maybe it's a harmless cultural thing, I don't know."

[destroy_restart]

"Ah, but what is cannibalism?" Tower says. "Eating your own kind, or eating intelligent creatures? If the second kind, then, yes it is; but parts of humanity might be classified as food as a result..."

[mechanicalswans]

"It's not something I've done," he says, "but if the person--or squid, or whatever--in question is already dead, I don't see much harm in it. I wouldn't be here without cannibalism, after all."

[destroy_restart]

"Well, you won't want to eat them when they're too dead," Tower says.

[mechanicalswans]

"Fire-roasted is the way to go, I'm told," Weyland says. "Tender and juicy--you don't want to overcook. But if burnt is all you have, that's what you eat."

Loki and hearts. He's still a little conflicted about that whole mess.

[destroy_restart]

"Well, there is this nice sauce you can eat fire-roasted calamari with..." Tower ponders. "Or anything grilled. Now I'm getting hungry!"

[mechanicalswans]

"My partner loves spices and very spicy sauces," he says. "Everything, spicy--I've developed something of a taste for it myself. If not as extreme as she likes things."

[destroy_restart]

"It's like sweet Worstershire sauce," Tower says. "The best thing with roast calamari ever."

[mechanicalswans]

"I think I may have to try some of that," he says. "I'm getting a bit hungry, myself."

Not-brooding is hungry work.

[destroy_restart]

Tower waves for a rat. "We'll have to do something about it, then."

[mechanicalswans]

"Absolutely," he agrees.

He could also use another glass of wine. Not-brooding is thirsty work too.

"I've been trying all sorts of strange foods, lately."

[destroy_restart]

So Tower orders grilled calamari, and more white wine.

[mechanicalswans]

Weyland gives the door another glance--still no sign of her.

Conversation is certainly a welcome distraction.

[destroy_restart]

"They make us wait so we realise how much they're worth waiting for," Tower says, observing his glance. "At least, that's the theory."

[mechanicalswans]

"My first wife never kept me waiting," he says. "She was always the very picture of obedience. I thought that was how things should be... until my Serafina, who does as she pleases when she pleases. She'll refuse to do things simply because she knows I want her to. And I wouldn't have it any other way, now."

[destroy_restart]

"Sometimes, though, they do things for reasons nothing to do with us..." Tower muses.

[mechanicalswans]

"Mine has a constant dance," he says. "We're always in motion, relative to each other. But she seems to be like that with most other things in her life, too."

[destroy_restart]

"That's what I meant," Tower says. "She doesn't stop when you're not looking."