(no subject)

[of_goldenlake]

There is a man mountain (six foot four, eighteen and a half stone of solid muscle and cynicism) sitting in half armour at a table, wondering if he can muster the energy to get rid of the rest of this damn metal. He really should have left the second ogre to his men, all things considered, but they were busy and he does have a reputation to maintain.

(Besides, taking on such big immortals solo is going to really piss off Jon, and Raoul has been taking a particular glee in annoying his old friend and king of late.)

One of his shin guards apparently decides that it is evidently going to have to remove itself, since its wearer is clearly not up to the job, and eventually detaches and rolls away from him across the bar. Raoul heaves a sigh, eyeing the offending piece of armour with a baleful fatalism.





...Nope, not moving. Not yet, anyway.

(But probably willing to talk.)

Comments

[of_goldenlake]

"I'm afraid so."

He offers the girl a very wry, very tired smile. "I did once have the ability to wear this clank all day and most of a night, but unfortunately that was about fifteen years ago."

And feels like about a century ago, at this stage.

[electro_kinetic]

"Better than me," she says. "Never worn armor. Had a uniform, it got cut off me." Because no way in hell was her arm coming out of that without a lot of shrieking on her part.

She still looks like ten miles of bad road, so...that comment may make more sense than it might otherwise. "Going to take the rest of it off?"

[of_goldenlake]

"Eventually, I expect."

He really ought to get around to getting a squire, one of these days. Although Mithros knows if any boy would be fool enough to want the endless work a job with the King's Own would entail...

Hopefully, "Perhaps, if I'm lucky, the rest will fall off me too."

[electro_kinetic]

"You could shimmy it off." She's sick and feeling awful, forgive the shallow dry humor.

"Is it that hard to take armor off?" She's never tried it; her armor is either bulletproof latex and leather or metal that fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. "Thought it was all buckles and--" And here we break for a minor coughing fit, which with the feeling of the entire Sonoran desert in her eyes accounts for the majority of the miserable-ness. "Or maybe I'm wrong, who knows."

[of_goldenlake]

He snorts. "I will report that remark to my commanding officer, just to see how long he laughs."

And by 'commanding officer' he means the king. Whenever Jon gets done sulking, anyway.

"It's a two-person job, generally speaking. And the dress armour is worse, but no-one's ever managed to make me wear that yet."

Give Jon time, though.

"What happened to you, kid?"

[electro_kinetic]

"Tell me how that goes. I could use the humor."

Kings, congressmen, soldiers...they're all sort of blurring together for her at this point. And rebels, and hell, herself half the time. Noriko's not sure whether it's that the X-Men keep changing sides, or that the sides keep changing around them. "Closest I've come to helping anyone put on armor was getting my little brother into baseball shin guards."

She looks down at herself, and her mouth moues up. "Uh...it's kind of complicated. I...had a pretty big hand in bringing down a building with me in it. Not the greatest idea, as it turns out."

[of_goldenlake]

"Ideally, you want to do that from the outside," Raoul recommends dryly.

"It's not as much fun when you can't watch the destruction."

Personal experience? WHAT personal experience?

[electro_kinetic]

"Next time I'll remember that," she says with a dry huff of an almost-laugh. If she actually laughs the coughing starts up again.

The next time will hopefully be never, but the way things go in her world she isn't counting on it. "It wasn't really intentional, though. I kind of like not being in casts. Or on drugs."

[of_goldenlake]

"I've heard rumours about the latter being fun, but as a figure of authority I'm told I should recommend against it."

His eyes are dancing, but his straight-face is pretty damn good.

"The former, however, are never any fun at all."

He is a dreadful, dreadful patient. Genuinely the worst.