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[pullsneedles]

It occurs to Lucas that it was most likely his birthday yesterday. How old is he supposed to be again? How old would Claus be? He's not even sure what matters about any of it anymore.

He sits at the bar and asks for a menu, preferring to think about his stomach than anything else right now. He picks the most unfamiliar page out of the selection offered, closes his eyes, and pokes his finger at a dish. He ends up learning that he likes ratatouille.

He would probably like being bothered.

Comments

[herr_bookman]

And here's someone come to bother him. Autor shuts his book and strides up to the bar, taking a seat and laying a gentle hand on his friend's shoulder. "Hello, Lucas," he says. "How are you?"

[pullsneedles]

"Oh, hey Autor," he answers, looking up from his food. "I'm all right. How're ya doin'?"

[herr_bookman]

Autor blinks. Lucas doesn't seem all right to him, but he'll not press for answers. "I'm fine, thanks for asking," he says. "What have you been up to since the wake?"

[pullsneedles]

"Lookin' stuff up with Duster. He's real interested in the Runaway Five. They were a band that was around when Porky was a kid."

[herr_bookman]

"Oh, nice," Autor says, nodding. He orders tea. "I remember you mentioning them. I'm so glad you have Duster around; he seems like he's a great help to you."

[pullsneedles]

Lucas nods.

"He found a newspaper about them, and about Porky. He, Porky I mean, he was doin' stuff even as a kid. He was somebody's business partner, but he stole the guy's helicopter and ran off."

[herr_bookman]

"A bad apple, rotten to the core," Autor muses, sipping his tea. "How could he be someone's business partner as a child? That makes no sense. And that's impressive, that he could fly a helicopter back then. I wonder if he managed to keep it fueled."

[pullsneedles]

"I dunno. And we dunno how the person who took the picture got such a good one of Porky while he was in the helicopter. But he was a kid. He looked the same as his Porky-bots."

[herr_bookman]

"Interesting," Autor says, furrowing his brow. "It's fascinating that he'd model them after what he looked like in his youth, but then again, he was a little focused on preservation of self."

He shudders, setting his teacup down. "Still, those bots were creepy. I'm glad we don't have to face them again."

[fairy_fixit]

After talking to Duster and finding out what the Dark Dragon actually is, Fixit has been dreading having to talk to Lucas again. What is she supposed to say to him? It could be just as bad to avoid him as it is to say something wrong to him.

With a heavy sigh, she gathers up her courage and her bowl of Maitake Mushroom Ice Cream and flies to an empty spot on the bar countertop nearer to the boy. When she settles, a small table and stool pop out of the countertop for her. She sits and puts the bowl down, then greets, "Hello, Lucas. Hello, ... Dark Dragon."

There is trepidation in her voice that wasn't there when they first met. "How are you doing?"

[pullsneedles]

"Oh, Miss Fixit," Lucas says, brightening a little. "Hello."

Hello, Miss Fixit, the Dragon rumbles, warm.

"Huh, I'm...." He sighs. "I guess I'm kinda blue. I remember a lot more than I did when we met."

[fairy_fixit]

"Oh no."

"I talked to your friend Duster... Is what you remember bad?" she asks, worried.

[pullsneedles]

He nods.

"Yeah. Duster was there for a bunch of it. Did...did he mention Claus?"

[fairy_fixit]

"Yes. he did." She looks down at the counter. "I am sorry you had to go through that. I wish there was something I could do or could have done, but I don't know, I am just a fairy."

Maybe it's better that way. Those with the power to prevent disasters only seem to cause disasters to happen in new ways.

[pullsneedles]

"It.... It wasn't gonna be good either way," Lucas says. "But I do 'ppreciate the thoughts, I really do."

Sometimes it feels like thoughts are all they've got to go on.

"It's... It was our birthday yesterday, Claus an' me. I'm trying not to think too much about it."

[fairy_fixit]

"Ohhh."

"Well it is probably best that I don't repeat my conversation with Duster then. Erm... so, what is it that you are eating?" she asks, rather unskillfully changing topic.

She's relieved that she doesn't have to talk about it now. But should she be?

[pullsneedles]

It's understandable. Who really does want to talk about it?

"Some kinda vegetable stew. I asked for a menu, closed my eyes, and picked it."

He turns some of the veggies around with his fork.

"There're onions and stuff, but there're things that I don't really know what they are, too," he goes, spearing a bit of zucchini.

[mindofathief]

Duster walks into the bar during the afternoon, just haven woken up from sleep. As much as he tries to fix his sleeping schedule, he's still too used to years of staying up late. More recently, he'd been switching nights either playing the bass in the main room or looking through the newspaper, but today, he plans to read it while eating breakfast.

He limps over to the bar, spotting Lucas, and sits down next to him.

"Hey Lucas," he says, resting a hand on his shoulder. "How're you feeling?"

[pullsneedles]

Lucas looks up with a small smile.

"Hey Duster," he answers back. "I guess I'm feelin' all right. How're you today?"

[mindofathief]

"Pretty good." Having El Santo compliment his music skills helped him wake up in a better mood the past few days.

"Hey," he says as he pats Lucas. "If you have time, we can look over the newspaper again. There's a lot of interesting things about the world I found." He noticed that Lucas was feeling less energetic today than usual, but it was better if the boy had something to focus on instead of sitting around not doing anything.

[pullsneedles]

"Oh yeah? What'd ya find?" he asks before nibbling a bit more on his stew.

[mindofathief]

Duster pulls out the newspaper he received from the Bar earlier, only now folded over showing the weather page.

"This is supposed to predict the weather for the entire land where Fourside was. It was one this huge place called 'Eagleland', and a lot bigger than all of the Nowhere Islands put together!"

On the map, the large city of Fourside is only represented by a dot, with some other dots scattered across the continent and several surround islands. There are a lot of strange blue and red lines all across the map, with symbols at every dot indicated what the weather is supposed to be like for the next day.

"I wonder how they were able to do something like that."

[pullsneedles]

"Eagleland," Lucas repeats thoughtfully. "Duster, we should ask for maps. There's another place that sounds like that, 'Foggyland.' Dr. Andonuts used to have a lab there."

He looks at the weather symbols on the map.

"I bet someone here knows how they did it."

[mindofathief]

Duster pours over the map one more time. "I don't see a Foggyland on this map. It's probably too far from Eagleland to show up." Just how big was the world, he thinks as he rests his head on a hand.

"Sounds like a plan! Let me grab something to eat first."

[pullsneedles]

"Sure. Hey, this stew stuff I got's pretty good," he suggests. "It's like, rat-a-too-ill? I think that's how you say it?"