milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Noriko comes into the bar with a postal box in her hands; it's smallish, but when she shakes it gingerly it rattles apparently satisfactorily. She stops by the bar itself for a drink (vanilla chai tea smoothie) and settles down to unboxing.

When she's finally unwrapped everything there's a small set of things laid on the table: a velvety-sheened wooden box about the size of a cigarette package with dark wood on the bottom and light white ash on top, a tiny glass pipe and a booklet of what would seem to be instructions. It's not a toy, though, and Nori pulls out a small bag full of what looks like dry-ish oregano (and isn't) to see how much fills the reservoir on one side and still fit a match or two.

Someone is proud of their purchase, yes.

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"Intriguing." The voice came from above, and above her, a man stood, his feet planted firmly on the underside of the rafters, drinking a beer that refused to spill downward.

"Very good craftsmanship." His voice was warm, and he was tall, greying of hair, and his eyes held many colors and none. And he wore a robe that also refused to fall downward.

"Well, yeah, I wanted it to be..." she began, looking over her shoulder before finishing that thought, and realizing there was no one there. And then she looked up--not a stretch for her, several people Noriko talked to regularly were taller than she, as well as a few who could cling to walls and ceilings--and blinked. Repeatedly.

She cocked her head as she studied him, her head craned way back to look straight up at someone who was definitely not fitting in with that Star Trek physics quote thing. The beer and the robe told that much. "...Pretty," Noriko finished, toying with the newly-discovered sliding door on the bottom of the box, which held another carved reservoir and a slot for a tiny steel rod. These people think of everything. "I mean. Useful is great and kind of the point, but so is the look. And how is that beer not falling on my head?" she asked, segueing right into that question without much of a pause.

Hey, pressing questions.

"Well-chosen, then, milady." And he started down toward her, turning in midair, as if somehow twisting to the sight.

"Magic, milady. Magic. Magic can do damn near anything, these days." His eyes danced in amusement.

Then he looked to her purchase. "But it does not replace good workmanship."

Edited 2016-04-27 02:19 (UTC)

"Magic," she repeated, as if there should have been a very incredulous Bugs Bunny saying the same to Elmer Fudd.

It ranked pretty up there. "Can't say I do much with magic, it not really liking to cooperate with what I do," she said slowly, watching him come down and twist until he was standing beside her. Okay, then.

"Do you know what this is?" Dugouts tended to conjure images of things far far less elegant or nice.

"What do you do, if I may ask?" He canted his head curiously.

Merlin shook his head. "Nay. I do not know what that is. Simply that the crafting was somewhat done by hand, and well done, at that."

"Electrokinesis," she answered with a slow nod, eyes following his face as if expecting him to not understand. Wouldn't be the first, that.

"It's called a dugout. You use it to keep tobacco and a small tubular pipe, or in my case marijuana. That'd be the green shit," Noriko explained, demonstrating with a flick of her thumb. "The pipe in this case is the white thing there, the little tube. You smoke?" she asked.

"The control or generation of electricity? I have heard that word mean many things." He was curious, his eyes on her.

"I have been known to smoke all sorts of things, aye. I tend a patch, in the back of the beyond, where none can find it. Tis but an acre now, far down from what it once was."

"Control," she said, shaking her head. "I don't generate it myself, but I can do a passable imitation."

She looked over at him at the notion of someone growing weed out here. "I've certainly never found it. Then again I don't tend to go wandering about back there without some kind of plan. I hear it opens into some kind of fairy kingdom or something, and I just don't need that. But it doesn't surprise me that you're growing it."

Merlin nodded. "Intriguing. Does it manifest often?" He shrugged. "The weed is there if it is needed."

He sat back, thinking, as he observed her.

"What do you do here, milady? What is it that makes you tick?" His voice was gentle, quiet, and simple.

"Only all the time," she answered. "My mutation is outwardly uncontrollable without the gauntlets I wear, and even then if I want to sit still for more than ten minutes, the weed comes in handy."

She shrugged. "What do I do here? Try to relax, which is usually helped by meditating, not having people shoot at me, and the aforementioned weed. As far as what makes me tick...that's a considerably longer answer, with such an open question. But if you want to take it outside I'll happily light up and talk."

She smokes outside, surprisingly considerate for the visual outlook she has; she likes the kids around here and likes their dad, and a stoned Fry is not something she really looks forward to experiencing. An angry Guppy over a stoned Fry less so.

Merlin nodded, listening. At her final answer, he grinned, and bowed to her. "Lead on, milady. Twoud be my pleasure to follow a beauty like yourself wherever you lead me."
And his words were spoken with utter sincerity.

Nori was never entirely sure how to take someone referring to her as a beauty: it had never really been a thing for her with her peers, and he fact that it had with older men particularly had only led to accusations of Daddy Issues.

"...Okay then," she said, picking up the box and it's contents, and her bag with the rest of her stuff in it, heading for the beach.

Merlin grinned and followed her along, treading after her, enjoying the view, and the day.

"How long have you been here?"

"This time, about twenty minutes," Nori answered. "Overall...on and off since I was about fifteen. I'm nineteen now, but it feels way, way longer." It probably has been, given the chronological differences.

"What about you?" she asked, dropping her bag by a fallen driftwood log, sitting herself down on it.

"Fifteen or so minutes this visit, but I've been around for over ten years Milliways time, several millennia of my lifetime."

Merlin smiled, and nodded. "It's been a long strange trip.' He settled opposite her, and smiled as he watched her.

"Millennia?" she asks, pulling a face. "Jesus."

Not that she believes in Christianity, but it's a convenient curse as she opens the dugout and pulls the glass pipe out. She looks over to him in question, as if asking whether he minds. "So at risk of getting a really confusing answer, where are you from?"

"Aye. Since before his birth, yes." He spoke it casually, as he grinned at her.

"Part of what is now known as the United Kingdom, near what is mow called Wales. Neither was a thing when I was born, long and long ago. Twas a small town, and nothing even of the entire peninsula where it was remains today." A hint of sadness slid across his face, then was gone.

"These days, I live in a place I made, in orbit above New York." The crystal caves proved remarkably repurposeable.

"Funny," she replied.

She blinks at the information, having to run through it twice. "In orbit above New York," Nori repeated, just to make sure she hadn't missed something vitally important. "What happened to it?"

"Also true."

He nodded at her almost question. "Aye. IN high Earth orbit, in what was once the crystal caves I discovered as a youth." He blinked.

"What happened to.. oh, the peninsula? Atlantis fell, and the shocks of the magic and Earthquakes destroyed that entire area." It is spoken matter-of-factly, even as that sadness was there, a little. Most of his sadness was long since felt and exorcised.

She blinked, and struck a match on the zip of her bag; she was definitely gonna need some herbal help to understand much of that. Crystal caves, Atlantis falling--Atlantis, really?--and millennia of life were all making for much confusion.

"Well," Noriko said, searching for a way to say anything to that, "I've never been to the UK. So I probably wouldn't be able to tell where it was."

Merlin canted his head to the side. "Most people there cannot. Most scientists do not even believe it existed." His wry tone might just have said what he thought of most scientists and their opinions.

"Most days, these days, I enjoy simply wandering, and keeping my hand in with a little creative mischief, and some protection of humanity when needed." He nodded, watching her.

"I'm assuming you think said scientists are full of shit," Noriko replied, brow lifted. She was inclined to side more with things she could prove, but that was her. People could believe whatever they liked, she was chill with that.

"Do I qualify under than humanity thing? 'Cause I can tell you I don't need protection. Something to do that doesn't get me shot, maybe."

"I think that scientists who assume they know everything are, yes. Just as i would be guilty of the same if I assumed that. There are always new mysteries, new facts being learned, which often deny the facts of yesterday. To blindly state something cannot be is to deny science itself." He shrugged.

"Aye you are a member of humanity, but if you are asking if I am here, now, to protect you, no. I am here because I thought it might be fun to spend time with a beautiful woman."

"Laying it on a little thick, aren't we?" she asked, twirling the glass tube between her fingers as she inhales, holding that breath for a few seconds before slowly exhaling a rippling stream of smoke.

"Do you hit on boys this way?"

"Am I? I am what I am, milady, and it is who I am, for better or ill." He grinned, eyes dancing.

"Aye, though, then, I usually look like this, or this." And he flickered through one form...

and then another.

Noriko blinks, because that was a hell of a transition, and pauses in the smoking. Relaxing it may be, but it's not great for the brain functions being quick.

"Well since you're a woman shouldn't I be a boy?" she asks.

"As you wish," she said, and held up a hand, blowing as if dust was moving toward Noriko, as the spell fell on her. It would change her, with no pain, to a male of particularly prominent maleness.

"There. Better."

Edited 2016-05-01 19:22 (UTC)

She closed her eyes at the blowing and shook her head, not feeling any particular sensation and more than willing to blow it off when she opened her eyes again. But the problem came when she actually did open her eyes and saw that she did not look remotely the same.

Indeed, much like an actual boy.

"Hey, what give--what the hell," she exclaimed, staring down at the flat chest and much narrower hips. She pulls on a lock of hair, still shaved in the back but shorter, assuring herself it's still the same blue. (She'd be more pissed at that changing than the bodyswap.)

"...Okay, I walked into that."

"You did, indeed." She grinned at Noriko, and her smile was warm, if amused.

"And a fine young man, you are, as well. Almost as pretty as the woman you were." Merlin's voice was throaty, and light.

"Not exactly what I was expecting." She'd been expecting something more feminine, more 'just-barely-a-boy' and less 'definitely-not-a-girl'.

"So, what, is this just what you thought I'd look good as?"

"Nay. This is the spell and your DNA interacting. This is one way you might have looked had you been born a boy." She smirked, then. "BUt it does look good on you."

"Huh."

She'd considered--loads of times over the years--exactly what she would have looked like as a boy, but it wasn't anything close to this. For a second the thought crosses Noriko's mind that she really ought to give her father a heart attack and see him like this.

"Is it just for like an hour, or until you walk off?"

"It will last until I wish it not to, or if you wish, I can make it stop at a predetermined time." Merlin's smirk was warm.

"It is up to you."

She stretched, quite content in a female setting as in a male one.

Noriko looked over at her, and hey, impressive shape for someone that was just a guy. It was weird to have that thought, honestly, but...oddly natural.

What the hell. She chuckled. "Well. Why not give it a go," Nori said, shaking her head gently. "Never been a guy for real."

Merlin grinned at him, and then raised an eyebrow.

"An adventure can be fun. Try some drink, go for a run, take a shower, have a wank, have sex. Try sitting. " She grinned. "And if you need me, all you need do is call my name." She nodded.

She liked Noriko, already, but she also did not want to intrude on another's discovery. Unless, of course, he wanted to do some of that with her, which she would be fine with.

"I think I'll pass on the sex idea, but thanks," she laughed, shaking her head and feeling the oft-ignored and suppressed blush rising up the base of her--his--neck. Awkward.

"right. Merlin. You know, two weeks of this is probably gonna be about all I got, but sure, I'll take it for a spin." Who knows, boyhood might open doors she never knew about. Noriko isn't entirely sure they'll all be good doors, but what the hell. That attitude had gotten her far enough to survive.

"Here, before we split and you leave me in this new getup--want a hit?"

Merlin laughed. "As you wish." She bowed to him, again.

She nodded, and snapped her fingers. "There, in two weeks, whether or not I am here, this will end, to the day and hour. And if you want it over before then, well, I can be reached here."

She nodded, smiling.

"I'd be honored."

She chuckles at that, and lifts her arms to look down at herself. "Well okay then," Noriko says, amused, and passing over the glass pipe. "You could just say okay."

Merlin smirked, shaking her head. "Unlikely, my friend. Unlikely."

She shrugged, the ripples doing interesting things. "That is not my way."

"What, casual?" she chuckles. "Come on. We just switched genders, you can say 'okay', instead of 'honored'."

"It is not a matter of casual, to me. It is merely how I think and speak." She sighed. "I am sorry if it makes you uncomfortable." She was who she was, truly. and was unlikely to change.

"It's not you in particular that makes me uncomfortable," Noriko says frankly in the face of that sigh. "It's the fact that I grew up in a very honor-bound society and at almost every turn it caused me nothing but grief."

"I'm sorry I reminded you pf a painful thing.' She bowed to Noriko, and smiled sadly. "I should go. Enjoy your time, my new friend, in this new adventure."

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