genessia | Picture Yourself In A Boat On A River

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Picture Yourself In A Boat On A River

Who Szel and Amberdrake
When Early evening
Where Amberdrake's office in Attleton
What Szel's hit the fae soul shit too hard. Now he's out to inflict himself on others.
Warnings Drugs?

Oh. No good. Great. Tannusen passed out. Not that Szel did not attempt to rouse the doped up tiger, he nudged him with his foot and poked his face and everything. But when his clearly extensive and well thought out awakening tactics failed, he just was left with no choice.

He'd have to go spend the evening with someone else.

Swimming through a haze of magically induced hallucinations was a fascinating trip, and when he found he no longer cared to walk, the demon took to teleporting his way through the city.

Which was how he ended up materializing in an office, the scent of opium hanging thickly around him.

"Don't bother going for the door. It's locked now."

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You know what Amberdrake could deal with a whole lot less of?

People teleporting into his office in the middle of the night.

The Healer had been taking a well-earned break after sending his last client home for the night, sitting on one of the couches in the lobby with a fresh pot of a soothing tea. And a pair of cups, because he never bothered to just bring one out anymore. Not when Ni might pop in at literally any moment, trying as always to take him off guard.

That, of course, was what the kestra'chern thought had just happened for... about half of a second.

He registered that this was someone new before Szelhamos even finished speaking. Raising an eyebrow, he calmly went to pour tea into the other cup.

"Tea?"

He has no idea who this man even is, but honestly unless that tea was holy water it wasn't like he was going to die if it was poisoned. He swept a full cup up with inhuman grace, going as far as to let a pinky slip into the boiling hot water. Not like it would hurt him. Just had to make sure it wasn't blessed before he took an uncomfortably deep gulp of it, the steam streaming from his mouth as he finished.

"What a cute little town this is. I've never bothered visiting before now." A beat, the way too enthused and sharp smile never fading.

"It's so boring, how does anyone even tolerate it." Anyway.

"I hear you're a therapist!" Where? How? Maybe he just pays attention to local businesses.

"It would be part of the job description to sit around and listen to life stories, right? Good, I'm about to make your job more interesting. You can thank me later."

Amberdrake was sort of a legend in his assorted fields, at least on his own world and thus among the fake denizens of this one. Szel could have heard about him from any number of the 'locals', even if his clients tend to be a bit more closed-mouthed about him for fear of revealing anything personal about themselves.

Thus, the kestra'chern wasn't exactly surprised. He watched Szel with the same calm study he watched everyone with; the kind that wasn't really a stare, somehow, but really didn't miss any details.

"That would be part of the job description, yes," Drake's voice had been cultivated over his entire life to sound smooth and pleasant. Calm, everything about him was calm. He even gave off a low-level calm projection Empathically, as a default. Not enough to unduly influence anyone -- it was about the same as lighting a pleasant smelling candle.

"Would you like a seat, or are you too full of energy?"

Szel, on the other hand, was a humming ball of energy. It wasn't exactly normal for him, honestly, if only Amberdrake knew how the demon usually conducted himself. Oh well.

He couldn't exactly see around the room about where to sit or anything, the snatching of the tea was part feeling the heat from the cup and the scent of the herbs... aaand part really stupid luck.

Finding a seat was proving to be a bit more difficult, and the cane snapped out to swing about close to the floor before it collided with a chair leg. Good. Right there. Perfect.

Long, long years in doing this made sure he'd find the seat with no issue, but it was a collection of long limbs falling about and now six sooty wings flapping, flaring and awkwardly jolting as he got himself comfortable.

"Well it'd be rude to stand, it's a terribly long story."

That wasn't going to be about him. Life stories, just not his life story.

"Have you ever experienced melding with the soul of a fairy before?"

Well that was... interesting. Both the line of questioning and the glimpse of wings. Six of them, no less? Two per person, Amberdrake was used to. Six was novel.

"...I can't say that I ever have, no."

Seraphs were special, you see. Even former ones.

"How dull. I suppose this might have occurred to you earlier, all things considered-

I'm not technically supposed to be seeing things. Anything, really. Anything at all. And yet here I am, looking at the color chartreuse and orange, and I cannot accurately explain why. Sometimes it takes on a more vaguely sepia tone.

It's been eons since I've seen a caterpillar, and here they are as well. My memory is a touch fuzzy but I'm fairly certain caterpillars aren't supposed to have trunks."

Oh well.

"They don't have trunks on most worlds, no," Amberdrake had actually been on one where that could happen. Haven. Especially after the stars had fallen from the sky and everything had gone a bit... wonky.

"I'm afraid I'll have to state the obvious and note that you've clearly been drugged. Heavily."

Or, you know, taken a drug rather than been drugged. Either way, the guy was as high as a soaring gryphon if he was seeing all of that. Even if he hadn't been blind, that wouldn't be... normal.

"I don't suppose it's fair to call it a drug in the usual sense, souls aren't really drugs, lacking any kind of chemical makeup, one might refer to it more as a spiritual experience."

A beat, followed by an unhinged Ritter as he finished the rest of his tea in one shot.

"I suppose that's all just.... your opinion." Man.

"Perhaps not in the usual sense," Drake conceded. But buddy, you're still fucking high.

He didn't even have a base-line for how this stranger usually behaved and he could tell that pretty plainly.

The wings flapped again, one of the left ones awkwardly quirking out as the others... reasonably settled.

Sort of.

"It is not alike at all, the use of the phrase 'been drugged' would first of all indicate there was drugs and allow me to tell you plainly, I am an expert in that field and I can assure you there were no drugs.

Second of all it would indicate that this happened without my knowledge and let me inform you, I am well aware of what happened.

And it's great.

Thank you."

"Well, I'm glad you're having a good time, then."

That still didn't explain why the guy was here.

Because he wants to be fuck you, Drake.

"I am." Wait.

"... I almost forgot why I was here." DERP.

"Have you heard any of the recent scandal from Everglade? Considering it's the go to place for this now, it's always chock full of it. I ask because I'm well aware." A pause.

"I doubt you are though, even if the guardian there is roughly as secretive and subtle as a flaming cinder block in drag being tossed through the window of a church."

Pause. Again. He's waiting for his brain to catch up.

"I oughtn't really."

... BUT. The demon leans forward, a move that, had he not been absolutely fucked right the hell up, would have seemed gracefully conspiratorial. As it is, the wings are again tossed into disarray, flapping everywhere, sticking out at random, difficult angles, the cane sliding out to tap around until he found Amberdrake with it. At least the tap was gentle.

"So we all know what her stance is with humans."

... Go on. Ask him to keep going.

...He doubts Drake is aware of the scandal in Everglade? Amberdrake doesn't bother to rise to that bait, not even a little bit. The kestra'chern just takes a drink of his tea, quite relaxed in his seat. He doesn't even react to being tapped with the cane, having rather expected it.

Not because the stranger somehow doesn't know where he is, of course. Drake hasn't moved from his seat this whole time, after all. No, it's expected because the winged man is being so very fidgety.

"How would I know what her stance is with humans?" Okay, maybe a little rising to the bait, if only because it amuses him.

Go on, rise to it. Take that fucking bait, Drake. He wants to talk some shit, goddamnit, it's important, okay. He was doing his damn best to ensure that he didn't accidentally cause the man any sort of damage.

Or the rest of the room. He was just barely careful enough not to start accidentally swiping things off shelves with those big stupid wings.

"Do you or don't you?" Because in lawyer talk that was a pretty ambiguous answer there, smart guy.

"Are you telling me you don't know, or are you asking how I'd imagine you'd tumble into the information that you have otherwise? That's not what this conversation is about. Focus."

YOU FOCUS, ASSHOLE.

Don't worry, Szel. Four worlds besides his own, now; you're still not the weirdest -- or bitchiest -- person Amberdrake's ever dealt with. Not by a long shot.

Konzen Douji still had both of those particular titles in the bag.

...It hadn't helped matters much that he'd been the previous incarnation of Drake's ke'chara and everyone involved had known it. Oh, and a literal God, to boot.

"I am aware, yes," Amberdrake decided to play ball, a little, instead of just continuing to gently poke at the stranger's own insinuations, "that one of the city guardians has a dislike for humans that could be observed from orbit."

Being human, himself, and having been on multiple worlds where that was the sort of thing that got a person murdered in the streets... yes. The veteran War-Healer had indeed been paying attention.

"Yes, it's grossly obvious. Not that I don't understand some form of distaste for humans, no offense." Sort of. Not really.

"But to take it to such an idiotic point- She demanded paperwork from nonhumans too! The nerve, can you even imagine? Demanding that everyone give up vital personal information like species and age and real names.

This is how humane disasters start.

You know what I've heard though?"

His tone dipped down lower.

"Her husband is human. Magic, of course, but human."

"That's not very surprising," Amberdrake pours himself some more tea, "everyone has their blind spots."

NO OFFENSE BRO.

Sort of. Not really.

To be fair, this is after hours, and he'd rather like to get home to his own human not-husband sometime tonight. Some chatty Cathy gossipy teleporting guy is stopping him from doing that, right now, and it's been... a long day.

He's allowing himself a little snark, for once. Just a bit around the edges of that serene kestra'chern mask of his.

u fuk

There's an offended snort, a blast of that same opium scented smoke filling the area for the briefest moment. Lack of control seemed to extend to everything, abilities included, it seemed.

"Don't get catty."

SZEL YOU BROKE IN.

"The level of hypocrisy involved in this is nearly at personal fantasy levels, I'd say she was suffering from hallucinations. It's already painfully clear the woman is delusional.

All this garbage to get attention for an overpriced panty store.

I hope someone burns her house down."

Is this what's going on? Is he supposed to psychoanalyze Grell with this... whoever he is?

Buddy you don't even have an appointment. In fact...

"I didn't catch your name," Amberdrake cut into the midst of the gossiping, after taking a sip of his tea. He eyed that smoke with a little suspicion, glad that the birds weren't in the office tonight.

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Picture Yourself In A Boat On A River

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