Participants:
| Scene Title | But Do You Have Moon Rabbit? |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Very important questions are asked. |
| Date | June 28, 2018 |
A week has passed since Berlin was last in the Safe Zone and really… she has no cover for being here this time. She can't go talking to skittish contacts this often, so she did her best to find other ways to spend her day. She went to the library. She walked through Yamagato Park. But eventually, she ended up here. At the market.
She hasn't bought anything this time, even though she did her best not to walk straight to Rory's table. Even when she's closer to it, she eases over toward it, as if he wasn't the entire reason she came to the Zone today. Don't be ridiculous.
Like most days in the Red Hook Market, there's many a booth set up, most of them the same as a week ago.
The booth in question, the one she avoids going to first, is in the same exact place, but it has a new feature on it this time, a box flipped over to cover up one of the corners, with a hand written note of 'Display Only'. On top of the box are a handful of stone objects, statuettes. Some are paper weights, one is a set of book ends. They are all rabbits, in various stages. Some laying down, some in a sphinx like position. Rabbits with little antlers on their heads. Rabbits with antlers and wings. A rabbit with just wings. One with a horn like a unicorn. The book ends feature two rabbits sitting on their hind legs, pushing a book-shaped stone object. One has antlers, the other has wings.
When she arrives, Rory is making a trade, a small white stone elephant passes hands and is traded for few slips of paper. He offers a smile and a nod as the older woman walks off with her new purchase.
Berlin sees him first, but her eyes drift down to the display box while he finishes his trade. She's far enough away that people pass in front of her while she stands there, but she's close enough to make out just what is on display. A smile spreads across her face and she breathes out a quiet laugh. She doesn't think about hiding it, since she assumes he's busy and she's just one of the crowd.
When she actually comes over, glancing toward the other customer briefly, she gravitates toward the rabbits. She looks over the rest of the table, too, just to see what's new, what's different, and also to have somewhere to look before she makes herself look up at him again.
"You've been busy this week," she comments, instead of saying anything like hello.
As soon as he sees her, there's a change in his demeanor. Rory wants to check and make sure his clothes are straight, but the most he does is run a hand over tan shirt, as if wiping crumbs off of it. Only there's no crumbs because he hasn't had anything to eat recently. "Some of these I'd made before, while i waited for a booth to open up," he explains. Though she knows for a fact that the rabbit ones he probably worked on between last week and this.
There's a variety, many of these were here last week, but some were not. Some of them have more visible purposes. Candle holders and the like, just made to look very unique and decorative.
"I found a book with your jackalope, but it also talked about other mythical rabbits, so I made a few extra, too." In fact. Mythical rabbits were all he'd worked on all week. But he won't say that specifically.
"Looks like it was a good book," Berlin says, her smile warm— her cheeks, too. "You found all the good ones. Skvader. Wolpertinger. I don't know this one," she says, with a gesture toward the rabbit with a horn. her eyebrows lift, the question in her expression instead of spoken.
"Oh," she says, in a tone that implies that she just remembered something, "I brought you something." She digs around in her bag for a few moments before she reaches in to the very bottom and pulls out something wrapped in tissue paper. "I found this," she says, which is probably understating the truth of her searching for it, "I thought you might like it." She unwraps it a bit before holding it out toward him. It's a stone, smaller than the palm of her hand, but it carries red and grey striping that makes it stand out all the same. "Red iron granite, I think it's called." She knows it's called that. It's obvious that she knows. "I read somewhere that it looks like that because it's from back when the earth first… had a lot of oxygen, you probably know that already." Berlin lets out a sigh at herself and her smile turns sheepish when she looks back to him. "Anyway, it's a gift."
Rory's about to answer her question, but suddenly his thoughts slam into a wall as she's holding out a stone of red iron granite toward him. His hand shifts, fingers looking as if he wants to reach for it, but he hesitates until she gets to the end, sheepish smile at all. A gift, she says. "It's beautiful," he responds after a second, meeting her shy smile with one of his own as he reaches out to take it.
"The one with the horn— it's called an … almirage? I'm not entirely sure how to say it. Some kind of fearsome protective rabbit from an island somewhere. In myth, of course." Or possibly in pop culture. Rory isn't entirely sure but he liked the image and the idea of a unihorned bunny rabbit. He'd wanted her to have options.
"You can consider one of them yours, if you want." As a gift? Perhaps.
His response widens her smile and once he takes it, Berlin uses that hand to tuck her hair behind an ear. "I just thought you might… Not that your ability means you have to be into rocks or anything. I mean, I'm not all about medical stuff just because— although it does help to know some stuff about what our abilities are related to, right?" She pauses there, because now she's talked herself around and gotten a bit lost. "I'm sorry, what were we saying?"
The rabbits help. She refocuses on them and on him when he explains. The idea of something small and adorable being a protector appeals to her. People might underestimate a rabbit. She knows a few women like that.
The offer brings her attention back up to him, surprise in her features, but delight, too. "If I want," she repeats with some amusement. Because of course she does. There's a glance to the Display Only notice, then back to him again. "I was going to beg you to let me buy the jackalope. Maybe I still will." Because she picks up the almirage instead. Cute and dangerous.
"You can try to beg, but I may just give it to you anyway," Rory responds without even thinking about it, that accent he'd attempted somewhat to hide on their first meeting slipping through more. Maybe he'd been trying to blend in with the rest of the sellers when he first met people, trying not to stand out too much more than he already did. He was proud of his SLC-E status, but less so his nationality. After all. The UK fought in the wrong side on that war all those years ago.
Even if they now try to pretend they did not.
He may not have been responsible for it, in fact he'd protested it at the time, but it he still felt shame for it, even then. "I'm not actually not very good at geology. I mean I have an unfair advantage on the subject, and I do like it. But I wouldn't say I'm an expert. I think I could make something very beautiful with this, though." But he did catch what she rambled about, too. "Our abilities?"
Berlin tilts her head at his response, her smile warmer. Lucille told her to watch for the things people say, and the reasons they might have said it. Even if they didn't know why themselves. So, she's a little less nervous about it when she responds herself. "Well then, Rory, can I please pay you for the jackalope?" She pushes back a laugh, but the amusement shows in her smile and in the shine of her eyes as she looks over at him.
"Oh, I know you can make something beautiful out of it, if you wanted." Maybe it's her way of making up for the broken statues last time. Or the gift this time. Or maybe she spent too much time thinking about him over the past week.
Berlin straightens up a little at the question and she responds with a sharp nod. "Yes. Our. Mine isn't anything like this," she says, because what he can do is really beautiful, which she doesn't have in her own ability. "I can sense people's health. See if anything's wrong or what's wrong. Which is a little easier if I know what I'm looking at."
July 5, 2018
"No, yours sounds pretty useful, though," Rory has to admit, tilting his head to the side as he looks at her. He knew that his country would not have found that to be dangerous, as they had not found his dangerous at first. Though he also knew he'd gotten lucky, with a good examiner who hadn't pushed for ways that molding rocks with his hands could have been dangerous. But surely just knowing someone's health wouldn't have caused alarm.
And thankfully, she doesn't have to worry about that here, either. "But you're right— we're all more than our abilities. I use mine in my jobs cause it's a tool, but it's not me." He's not all about rocks, she's not all about medicine.
"There's a concert in a few days, at the college," he suddenly tangents. "A couple of the blokes who live near me mentioned it."
"Useful or intrusive, depending on your point of view. The first thing I learned was how to turn it off," Berlin says, and although the words could imply something darker, her tone stays light. Maybe just to keep him from thinking too hard about the situation in his country. Since she's well aware of how other countries are handling the SLC issue. "Yes, that's exactly it," she says, "A tool, that's how I'd like to think of them."
Her eyebrows lift when he brings up the concert. A sharp turn into a new topic, but she can roll with it, even if it turns her smile crooked. "Yeah? I hadn't heard that. In a few days… Like for the fourth?" Technically, this country isn't hers either, but she's adopted it in recent years, enough to learn how rambunctious that particular holiday can get. "With the firework laws being what they are," she notes, "I bet that's going to be a popular event around here."
Oh, that. Came out a little awkward hadn't it? It had been one of those things Rory'd been thinking about for days since he heard people bring it up (and had one person he lived near ask him if he wanted to go, in fact). He had said no at the time, but it nagged him that he might want to bring it up with her. The wolf-rabbit. If she showed up. And at the first lull in conversation it just— came out.
Glancing away, his forehead furrows in frustration or embarrassment at himself, but he responds after a few seconds. "I think so, yeah. A holiday thing," He obviously does know what the holiday is for— he wonders how long it will take for them to declare new holidays after the end of their war. And while he definitely has not celebrated it before, he understands celebrations. Not so much the firework part, though. "There probably won't be food or anything, but if you wanted to go we could… meet there?" That last bit has a hint of a flinch to it, like he knows how terrible he's being at this whole thing.
He had planned it out in his head! But he's pretty sure it had gone better there.
Berlin doesn't seem to mind that he's a little awkward, or that there's a roundabout path to get to the actual question. When he gets it out, her smile softens, even. "We could get food after," she says, "depending on how late it is, I suppose. But either way. Yeah, let's meet there." She might stumble over her answer, but she gets there. "Maybe we could meet at the student center and head to the concert together. Instead of trying to spot each other in the crowd."
She's on the short side, after all. Easy to lose among the many heads.
"If I had known I was going to get a present and a date," she says, her tone playful, "I would have gotten here earlier." It's just a gentle tease, perhaps trying to help him feel less embarrassed about how this is all going. Because she seems to think it's going fine, over all.
And she shows pretty quickly that she's way better at planning this kind of thing than he happened to be. Rory's idea had been pretty much limited to 'invite the girl, hope she says yes, go to the concert, hope it's fun'. But there she goes and adds to it. "So that's a yes?" The way he's smiling is hard not to notice, it's both relief and the desire to cheer all in one.
"Meeting at the student center and then having dinner after sounds like a great idea." He'll have to find someplace that's open and isn't having major food shortages—
And somewhere he can afford. There's a lot more options for getting food in the Safe Zone these days, even if there's still a shortage. It's hurt those who live in the less developed areas more than places close to the college and in the better districts. He's sure there's at least one or two good places close to the college.
"What? Oh, yes," Berlin says with a sheepish laugh, "Yes, it's a yes."
Her head tilts a little when she notices his smile. She may be new at this, but even she can read that expression. And she can't help but feel flattered, and a little flustered. Fingers run through her hair, pulling it off to the side as if trying to tame it. Nevermind that it falls right back where it was. "Let me give you my number, in case you need to… change the meeting or something." It isn't the smoothest excuse for handing someone her number, but she's rolling with it.
From her bag, she pulls out a small notebook that's obviously been in use for a while. It's a bit banged up and has all sorts of things shoved in between pages. As she flips through it to find an empty page, it becomes clear that she makes a habit of jotting down her thoughts in it. But, too, she doesn't seem to mind yanking a page out. Instead of just her number, Berlin notes down her email as well. These days, it's hard to say which is a more reliable method of communication here in the safe zone. If either of them. But the page is passed across the table to him all the same.
The Market at least does have one of those cellphone hotspot things that allows for calls to be made, but the neighborhood Rory lives in certainly does not. Instead of saying 'I don't have a cellphone because it didn't seem like a good investment when I wouldn't have access to it most places', which happens to be the truth, he reaches out and takes the page.
"I'll contact you as soon as possible." Even if he has to go to the library and sign up for one of those free emails online and do it that way. Maybe in the next few months he'll invest in a cellphone, but he's very grateful when he sees the email there as a second method of notification.
Even if he doesn't know much about computers. How hard can email be?
"You're definitely better at this planning thing than I am. I was just hoping you'd say yes." That had been as far as he'd thought about it, honestly. He had nearly even turned the 'maybe we should go together' part into 'maybe you could go it could be fun' and hope to run into her there.
These days, contact isn't as easy as it once was. Or reliable. Berlin has a special circumstance, given who she works for, but she's not unaware of how things are in the zone. In fact, the Safe Zone's situation is fairly familiar to her, given how she grew up.
"If you need to," she says, as far as contacting her goes. She smiles, a bit amused. She's not unaware that many people in the zone go without, either.
Berlin laughs when he goes on, though. "It's been part of my job for a few years. Scheduling, logistics. It's a hard habit to break." But in this case, she doesn't mind indulging it. There's a pause while she looks over at him for a moment. Her smile turns a little crooked, a little sheepish. "I was always going to say yes. You could have asked me to pretty much anything."
No, it really wasn't. But Rory would manage. After all, this was something he'd been quietly thinking about since he met her, whether he'd admit it or not. And that she was going to say yes. Well. He couldn't help but look down and try his best not to outright flush. Having a bit of a tan from working outdoors helps with avoiding that.
Thankfully.
"It's a date, then," he ventures to say, that hint of a flush unable to hide his grin.
Hopefully the first of many. What could go wrong at a concert, after all?