Eggnog Crossing

Eggnog Crossing
Date of Scene:	24 March 2013
Location:	Southern Manhattan
Synopsis:	It's time... for adventure! And awkward conversations.
Cast of Characters:	Riku, Avira

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Riku has posed:
He knew he had to come back here eventually.

In Manhattan it was still around the time they know as Christmas because the sleeping world had no concept of time while it was lost. So it's cold, and there is snow and...

Yes.

Yes there is.

There is in fact eggnog.

So he stands there in the street with a stacked tray of eggnog, using his other hand to fidget with the containers. He looks down at the concrete under his feet, and then around at the street. It's a little disturbing to stand here, on the sidewalk across from the Twilight Detective Agency. He's not sure Avira will still be here. That he would rather do this than deal with an awkward situation back ho... No. Riku banishes that thought. Archades was just another place. He couldn't think of it like that. Not just yet.

Still. He had.. pushed himself into a very awkward place there, and this? This was slightly less awkward.

People were passing him in the street. Cars roamed down the streets. There was a great deal of bustling city noise that he just.. stood there and soaked in.

And he didn't move. He got all the way here, and he couldn't move.

Avira has posed:
Sometimes I feel I've got to...
(Dun dun)
Run awaaaay~

It was strange. Ever since the world was restored, Avira had yet to actually visit Manhattan. Part of it had been the fact that she was still recovering from the restoration of this place-and, in fact, probably wouldn't have recovered without Isaac's intervention. It's more than a shock to see Manhattan still at Christmas time and it didn't take long to realize the world had all been 'paused' while it was in the darkness.

To make things worse, as soon as she arrives in the Central Park portal, she's struck with an odd feeling she cannot quite explain. It was like feeling...complete again, maybe?

As she walks, she draws stares from every person she passes and this does not go unnoticed by the scarred woman. Their looks wasn't just one out of morbid curiosity for her appearance or clothing, which still rocked the Ivalician style she'd come to enjoy. No, they looked at her as if they...knew her?

Her destination was, nonetheless, the Twilight Detective Agency and no small amount of awkward staring would keep her from that. Eventually, Riku would spy her about a block away from the entrance to the building. If he moved fast enough, he could intercept her without having to actually go inside the TDA.

Riku has posed:
Which would, hey. That would be a great thing.

There could be anything in there. From a Mercade, to a Will, to a Max or Tom.

He really wasn't stable enough to be mom'ed at either.

So hey! Actually /not/ going there where he might be eaten by a Grue would be a great idea.
% And there's Riku.. moving for the intercept play!

The teenager brushes a hand over his winter attire, patting the coat and fidgeting with the ragged trim as he stuffs one hand into his pocket and then retrieves it. (Hard to fold arms when one had is occupied by a tray. This invariably leads to a Cool Factor error and yet he can't figure out how to rectify this error without looking even further like a doof.)

So. When in doubt, pretend you don't notice how crushingly awkward this is. Riku looks up at the glowering and overcast sky as a few flakes of snow start to drift down. "Hey." he calls out to her after a moment of two of (Yeah. I should probably just step backwards and go ANYWHERE but here. Even if it's into a tree.) that he has to fend off.

"Do you have a moment for a peace offering, or do we proceed right back to the shaking?"

Avira has posed:
AND TEAM RIKU TAKES CONTROL!!

To Avira's credit, she didn't come waltzing in to New York in the typical Dalamasca desert fashion. Soon as she realized it was still winter here, she'd ducked back for some warmer clothing and coat. It's a long coat too with nice silver embroidering made from heavy leather-clearly an article of clothing meant for an adventurer that has scuffles with violent wildlife in her future. It still stands out as a lot more fancy compared to Manhattan fashion.

'Hey!' It might not be her name, but it gets Avira's attention all the same. Due to training, she keeps herself a lot more aware of her surroundings than the typical disaffected New Yorker. She looks up, stopping and scanning the crowd for a familiar face. There are more awkward stares from bystandards, which Avira plays 'dodge the eye contact' with as she searches.

Riku is spotted, looking like Riku, of course and not a SNEAKY SABLE. "I'm feeling charitable right now." Avira says dryly, motioning for him to come over. She's a little surprised that he'd actually come to Manhattan but tactfully does not voice this.

Riku has posed:
Yeah. Names are completely out of style this year, don't you know?

It's the new cool thing to not actually say people's names. In fact, maybe next year they will be known as the Teenager Formerly Known ad Riku.

But that's a little too in the future.

Riku smiles in a rather chagrined way and moves over to Avira's side. He manuevers the tray and sets it down for a moment on a bench before extending a cup silently to Avira. He doesn't know if this is going to look like a poison apple or something (And hey, who even does that anyways) so he sort of has this expression on his face like he's not sure how long he is going to extend that cup to her before his Cool Factor is permanently marred.

"Well. I thought I would bring the eggnog this time." He does start to notice the dodge the eye contact game, so if Avira takes the cup he'll start moving somewhere a little quieter. If not, he will just look at the cup with chagrin for a bit.

It's eggnog. It doesn't deserve such scorn.

Riku is also sort of wondering what he's doing here, and he has much less tact than Avira. However, he's too busy attending to the eggnog to not stick his foot in his mouth quite yet.

Give him time.

Avira has posed:
Avira likes to believe she has yet to wrong people enough that they initiate plots to assassinate her via poison against her. And let's face it...she's no Snow White. There's still that air of wariness about her since there was an awful lot she didn't know about Riku beyond his veil of cool. She's quick to accept the offered eggnog and takes a few steps backwards, out of the middle of the sidewalk so they don't get trampled by the ever-moving throngs of bystanders.

Or worse, so they don't get stared at further.

She doesn't drink from it right away, also interested in finding somewhere quieter. Would he talk? Maybe. Riku wasn't exactly famous for being chatty like Sora was.

Avira stares into her eggnog cup, a distant look on her face. "...this is my first time back here." she says quietly. "It feels different." Finally, she actually takes a drink.

Riku has posed:
You would be surprised, Avira.

When Riku gets chatty. That is when you should be afraid. Very afraid.

Riku chats with the force of a sledgehammer. Maybe with practice he'll get better about it and not vacilitate between semi stuttering silence and horrible exposition. Case in point.

"It does. It's.." he grasps around for a word and then realizes Avira won't really know what he means by it, so he lets the trailing sentence hang for a moment before continuing. "It's safe here, because of you and Sora and the others. " he nods slightly to himself. "I'm glad you're alright. "

He doesn't know what to say after that, but he does want to say something. He does want to speak.. he just doesn't know about what. So he falls back on something he learned while he was being sneaky. "Have you gone back to mark chasing, or are you still recovering? I heard from Will you were down for a bit."

He takes a small drink from his own cup, and probably because this is not a land war in asia or anything to do with Iocaine powder, the eggnog being more than eggnog can probably be safely ruled out.

Wait! .. Wait.

Oh. Right. That's just cinnamon.

Avira has posed:
Slowly, she nods. "Yes...it's safe from being devoured again like last time. Since Sora did what he did." He ought to repeat that against the other worlds, Avira realizes, and seal away the other World Hearts. A no-brainer, really.

Much to Avira's surprise, perhaps, Riku tells her that he's glad she's alright. Avira dips her head a little, lowering her eyes. "Thanks." Alright, yes, though she seemed off somehow.

She sips her eggnog and lets the awkward silence happen as she tries to gather her thoughts. "Haven't tried chasing down any marks yet. I still need to get back my weapon. I feel kind of wrong without it." Indeed, the Spine still seems to be missing. "I tried catching up with friends in Fluorgis this week but...it didn't go very well."

Frowning suddenly, she sniffs at her eggnog. Cinnamon!?!? ..delicious. "...how have you been holding up?"

Riku has posed:
Riku is not very good at this. He's not good at this when he has nothing to be guilty about. So this is sort of taking so much of a negative penalty that he might as well be rolling 1s. (Thanks Reize.)

He stays silent as she talks, occasionally raising the cup to his lips mechanically and taking another sip. He takes in a small steadying breath and lets it out, a small plume of mist rising as snow continues to filter down in small swirls and patterns.

"Yeah.. that sword of yours is pretty distinctive." he snorts faintly. "..And you don't have the problem that Luso does, where he can't just pick /one/." There is an attempt at smiling that doesn't completely succeed.

"..I've been meaning to go to Fluorgis myself. I haven't seen the Shard Seekers in quite some time. I sort.. of what to know what they've been up to." he pauses, and then asks. "..Are you okay?"

Strange thing to be asking, but he looks at her straight on. That he has sort of side stepped his own question is not lost on him, but he's don't more than enough talking about himself recently. He's letting someone else have a turn before answering that (admittingly) awkward question.

Avira has posed:
In spite of her words, Avira's not actually trying to make Riku feel guilty for what happened. Yes, sure, he had a big part in that, but at this point she can't manage to feel angry over it anymore-not when she had plenty of other people to be angry at right now.

"It's very special to me. The Spine has a piece of my world in it." she says then, unable to help herself, lets out a little laugh when she's reminded of Luso. "I think Luso has a problem. The kind of problem people need twelve-step programs to solve. "

Ah, Riku's gone into evade mode again! This does happen in an awful lot of their encounters so Avira lets it slide. Though much like her 'relationship' with Max, she starts to grow a little suspicious. Just something about people that ask lots of questions about her while not revealing much about themselves...well...

"...I've been better. Catching up with my friends didn't go so well. Angantyr is...rightfully angry with me." Her free hand rubs the back of her neck. "And ever since I woke up, I've felt kind of empty, I guess."

Riku has posed:
Riku nods, eyes flicking to the street to watch the cars and the people go by for a few moments before returning to Avira. He takes another conversation stalling sip of eggnog before replying.

"Angantyr just.. sort of plows right through things, yeah. That's.." he rubs the back of his neck. "Gotten him in trouble. Even when he has good reasons to be angry." he pauses for a long time, then asks.

"..Do you need help finding it? The Spine, I mean. A little adventure might do you good." And he's completely not evading an awkward situation by not being there to be awkward about it.

Nooo! That would be sneaky. And evasive... Nothing to see here. >.> <.<

Avira has posed:
YEAH WHAT ARE YOU GONNA SAY TO THAT, RIKU! Friend issues must be double awkward points! But given all that's happened lately, Avira kind of appreciates those stretches of silence. He's probably really thinking about what to say instead of blurting things out haphazardly like some people she knew. After all that's happened lately, she could do with a lot less haphazard blurting.

"No kidding." Avira easily knew that Riku and Angantyr have fought each other before. Maybe even multiple times. "I don't know what to do with him."

Ah, the Spine. "We would have to find this one man named Kamon Lionward. Apparently he picked it up? I've never heard of this guy before so I have no idea what world he comes from."

She finally looks to him. "Are you offering your help, Riku?"

Riku has posed:
Riku does not know what answer to give there. No?

"Yes, Avira. I am." he takes another drink and points out. "Maybe.. he makes a tasteful lawn ornament?" with the edge of a smile.

"I'd offer to kick his ass for you but.. I'm sort of on the wrong side of that argument he's got going with Archades now and I think he'd take it farther than just a friendly thrashing." he snorts faintly.

"I'm training to be a judge, and he just.. has very good reasons to be angry with them."

Avira has posed:
"Alrighty. I'll accept your help, then. I'm warning you though I have no idea where to even start finding this guy...well...except maybe Traverse Town which was where he was last." Avira points out between sips.

But as for the subject of Angantyr-Avira's eyes widen just a little. "...experience shows he would take it too far. Especially since you did intervene that one time with Gabranth. In fact, I daresay he wouldn't hold back and try to do everything in his power to kill you."

Avira turns to look at him and holds up her free hand, forming a corner of a picture frame, which she peers at over to Riku. "Seeing you in Judge armor now. Hmmm. It could work."

Riku has posed:
"He can certainly try. I've had a lot of people try to do that. They haven't succeeded just yet." Riku shrugs in a very gaelic manner (again without knowing where that comes from. Curse multi-word reference) and he grins with something like genuine embarrassment as Avira makes the framing motion.

"Yeah.. that's not for a long..time yet. I've got a list of materials because I actually have to /make/ it. or.. well. At least Synthesize it anyways but.." he snorts.

"Maybe I'm just using it as an excuse to get out and adventure again. That... that seems somehow simpler than my life has been up to now."

Avira has posed:
"You need to get a little bit taller first." Avira teases slyly, "Judges are legally obligated to cut as imposing figures possible, you know." She does seem fascinated to learn that Riku will have to make his own Judge armor, which is no doubt a tricky task given how well-made those suits are.

She takes a moment to drink up what seems to be the rest of her eggnog, leaving her with an empty cup. She keeps it held up to her mouth for a few seconds longer, trying to get every drop out of it.

"Simple, huh." Avira stares at her empty cup. "You know, I can appreciate simple." She looks up at him, managing a genuine smile. "So let's do it. Let's go have a most excellent adventure."

Riku has posed:
Riku snorts. "Yeah. I think I saw it in the rules somewhere. But I just have to wait. Can you imagine /Sora/ trying something like that?" he laughs quietly, finishing his own egg nog.

He looks down into the cup and swirls around the dregs for a moment before looking up at Avira. "I think.. that sounds like a good plan, Avira. ..A very good plan."

Avira has posed:
"I can't imagine Sora ever growing another inch taller." Avira laughs. "It's going to be /weird/ seeing him age. He strikes me as one of those lost boy types, you know?" 'Oh and Neverland exists' she's about to add, only to realize that the whole Peter Pan thing might not be a legend where he's from. "So..."

Avira looks around and spots a trash can. Her empty cup is tossed in.

"I think the TDA wants to feed me some cake a little later. I could meet up with you later and we could go somewhere else for a while. Unless you want to come to tonight. I can't say I know how you feel about parties these days."

Riku has posed:
Riku rubs the back of his head. "Yeah. He did get lost for quite awhile. It's a trait he and Reize share amongst other things." Ah. Multi-world references. A treasure trove of stories that people have no frame of reference to.

"I.. don't know what my opinion is on them either. I know the TDA want to be.." he shrugs as if trying to fill in the blanks with a word he understood but, that's where he comes to a grinding halt for a bit. "..but it's a celebration. I think.. I might be forgiven.. but I don't think I'd be entirely welcome."

Riku smiles a bit wanely, covering it up with a smirk. "So go enjoy your cake. I'll meet up with you sometime afterwards and we can get started."

Avira has posed:
Ah, but this is a reference that Avira's actually going to get. In fact, she gets it so much that it's a struggle for her to not raise a fist and shake it at the sky, uttering Reize's name!

Her thoughts drift back to the blow-up in Fluorgis yesterday and she winces. She pictures Riku getting caught up in a similar blow-up amongst TDA members. Mercade getting angry. Will jumping in to defend. Max being incendiary. The party becoming awkward and not in that high school way.

She can see why Riku wouldn't want to put up with any of that. Avira nods evenly. "Alright. I'll stick around here so I bet you'll find me soon enough." The scarred woman grins and gives him a friendly salute.

Riku has posed:
Yeah.

TDA place is sort of.. Ix-nayed. Riku looks over at the old building for a moment in thought, then looks back at Avira. He throws his own cup along with the tray into the trash bin.

"Alright. I'll see you then." he echoes her salute and lingers for just a moment more, then another...

and then simply nods a little to himself, turning away from her to start walking down the street and merging with the crowd.