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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rolzup" data-source="post: 3513456" data-attributes="member: 10105">Interlude: Mystery Date, part IOn a cloudy night Eve watches the ships come in. One in particular holds her attention, careening several feet above the water through the never-quite-dark of Narayan harbor. It would be a fairly nondescript pleasure boat if it weren’t flying; apparently by means of two large boulders that are falling backwards into the sky, lashed to the ends of a wing-like wooden frame girding the ship’s midsection. Tied to each boulder is a tiny shouting figure, likely to blame for encouraging them to fall the wrong way, in defiance of both natural law and good common sense. A tall woman ringed in bright full moonlight imported from somewhere else stands at the prow. "Show off," says Eve. "Shalazar can Gate to anywhere on the planet in an instant, and yet she bothers making boats fly with stones. There’s something needlessly… baroque about that woman. It’s all so tacky.""The Shalazar? High Gate Mage from the Acadeum Gaeta?" asks Meiji as he sidles up, smelling faintly of foreign flowers and radiating his omnipresent aura of curiosity about attractive women, whether in his company or not. He glances at the staff she holds, containing the bound succubus named "The Bella Dominatrix", which somehow instantly makes him think of long, hard cylindrical objects. Shaking the thoughts off, he continues, "That so… my acquaintance Mallus keeps promising to introduce us." "There are better ways to begin a first date than mentioning another striking and accomplished woman, by name even. You could, for instance, express in immodest detail an interest in getting into my pants."Meiji laughs. Ancestors above – why can’t I meet more women like this? "Did I forget to wear my 'I’d love to get into your pants’'face? Pardon me!" He raises a hand to his forehead and brings it down. As it descends, above it his face changes into a remarkable facsimile of Kenji Yamamoto’s. The samurai’s expressionless visage, quite out of place on Meiji’s foppishly garbed body, stares back at Eve for a moment, before changing back to its original form. "Whoops! That was my 'I’d never even think of getting into your pants unless there was an ancestral sword in them' face."Eve snorts her amusement. "I’ve noticed you two have certain variations in your philosophy." She glances down at his garb, "And a very similar fascination with pajamas as evening wear." Meiji chuckles, unabashed at the comparison. "Sheer coincidence, believe me. But I’ll freely admit to being fascinated by Gate Magic, and the sight of Gate Mages at work. It’s very impressive – especially to a poor uneducated foreigner such as myself." Even in the low light, Meiji’s eyes manage to twinkle as he says that last part. Then, as he turns to glance at the distant Shalazar’s borrowed moonlight, the humor is jostled to the side as cupidity and ambition line up beside it. "Then you’re in for a real treat," says Eve, as she impulsively grabs Meiji’s arm. Which promptly interlaces itself with hers and, displaying a flexibility befitting its master’s lack of a spine, somehow manages to curl around her waist. Eve doesn’t respond in any way, but instead points out over the harbor. There, the floating boat has stopped, more or less, and dark figures on her deck are conjuring little windows of amber light. Under Shalazar’s direction the team of Gate Magicians begins fitting their individual Gates together in a section of the night sky. Suddenly from above, there is a loud tearing sound, as if an earthquake was beginning in a cloud. A massive dark shape falls into the water, a bit of a mountain shorn from its moorings and plopped unceremoniously into the sea. "She’s laying the foundation for the Customs House, the one that’s going to sit in the harbor across from the new Sea Gate to the Osamu Islands."Noting the tone of disinterest, Meiji – who has just made as good an attempt at looking round-eyed as he is biologically capable of – asks, "You don’t find this at all interesting?" "If by interesting you mean gauche, then yes, certainly."The shugenja sighs inwardly, but he’s always been good at judging on which side his momo is fried. "We should go somewhere else then, milady. Alas, since I cannot whistle up a Gate – yet – I cannot….""You should leave Gates to those who lack perfect skin and can’t fake good breeding. I’ve got an idea; let’s wait for Shalazar and then follow her. I’m just dying to see what she’s wearing. Well, that’s not strictly true, since I’m not really dying at all, not in the least little bit. You’ll have a hard time finding another woman who can say that, Meiji-from-the-Empire-of-Heaven.""Not that you’ll believe me, of course, but at this moment I’m really not thinking of finding other women." As he says it, Meiji is slightly surprised – and just a little disconcerted – to realize that he’s actually telling the truth. Eve laughs and responds with a quick quip, and the two exchange a few quick witticisms, interspersed with the odd compliment, like friendly fencers testing out each other’s defenses, during the few minutes before Shalazar’s wobbling aerial yacht docks at Pier Un. Its crew of Gate Magic students disembarks and they all head, in fine academic fashion, to the closest bar they can find. "Come on!" The Lady Eve, it turns out, is a fair sneak-thief, darting between shops out of the sight of Shalazar’s band, even while encumbered by a first date and a magical staff that radiates a dangerously sexy malevolence. "Oh pipe down," she tells it after a particularly salacious emanation. Meiji and Eve follow Shalazar into a large waterfront tavern that’s far more elegant inside that out. Once inside, the Lady Eve’s bearing changes, and she bears down on the High Gate Mage’s table, leading with her leering staff, whose aura sends several men scampering to the privy with their hands decorously covering the fronts of their breeches. To Meiji’s surprise, Mallus and Joachim are seated next to Shalazar, with the Lovesworn actually whispering some sweet ginny nothing in her ear. Catching Mallus’ eye, after it has made at least three attempts to avoid him, Meiji gestures for the Lovesworn to join him. With an expression suggesting a cat about to regurgitate a canary, Mallus extricates himself from the table and does so. "You promised to ask Shalazar if you could get me into the Academy," says Meiji. "You mean right now?" asks Mallus, coolly sipping his drink. "No, no. But I just wanted to remind you about it, since you two are here." His eyes flicker past Mallus and take on an anticipatory gleam. "And I wouldn’t want any interruption there right now."Mallus, looking down at his drink and attempting to give the impression that he has no connection with, knowledge or even awareness of the man he’s speaking to right now, looks up. "Oh. Bugger."While Meiji and he have been speaking, the Lady Eve and the High Mage have locked gazes across the table. "Shalazar.""Eve."Somewhere, far off in the distance, soft music begins to play. "Delighted.""Naturally." A balding gentleman stepping out of the door cries out shrilly as a rolling mass of thorny vegetation knocks him off his feet. "This … is … beautiful!" Meiji mutters, quietly but devoutly, and wipes a trickle of drool from the corner of his mouth. "I’m pleased to see you’re aging gracefully as ever, Eve. How many is it now?""I forget. Perhaps since I was distracted seeing you get your rocks off out in the harbor." An unwary fly buzzes through the space where the two women’s gazes intersect and is instantly displaced temporally and physically, while being simultaneously incinerated and frozen. A catfight for the ages brews. Before it can be served, black and tart and potentially deadly to spectators, Mallus nudges Meiji, "We do need to break this up, you know." The shugenja, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead, doesn’t take his eyes off the pair. "Are you nuts?" "No, you almond-eyed prat! There are people around. And I like this bar. There’ll be a hole here before they’re done. You take Eve. I’ll distract Shalazar." Mallus takes a large sip at the thought of what he just said. Meiji says nothing for a long second, and then sighs. "You’re probably right. And I do want to finish this date. And get into the Academy. Don’t forget to talk to Shalazar, okay?" "Deal." Mallus takes a deep breath and slides back into his seat beside Shalazar, slightly distracting her. Simultaneously, Meiji says politely, "Eve." Eve doesn’t move, and nor does Shalazar, but as Mallus quietly addresses the latter, the two women carefully disengage their gazes and turn to the men beside them. "Would you like me to get you a drink?" asks Meiji brightly. Eve frowns slightly, and then her face clears and she laughs. "Yes, that’s enough of that. Come along Meiji; let’s get a drink at the bar." She steps forward and slides her arm through his. As they walk away, however, her head swivels and she calls back to Shalazar, "By the way, I just love your dress. It’s just perfect for working at night."There is a breathless silence, broken by the sound of Mallus muttering something quietly, and then Shalazar’s sotto voce remark, "What an odd couple!" to the assorted hangers on surrounding her. Meiji hurries Eve onwards, his leg inadvertently rubbing against her staff, an act that causes him to take on a strangely crablike gait. The two of them reach and manage to squeeze in at the establishment’s long, mobbed hardwood bar. "I know where we are," exclaims Eve, looking around, Shalazar clearly forgotten. "This is the Chanson Du Ragwan. I haven’t been here in… years. They’ve remodeled. Have you ever heard the 'Chanson'? It’s a famous historical poem that’s been put to music, unless, of course, it started as a bawdy song favored by sailors with the clap that got more respectable as time went by, demonstrating once again irony is the driving force behind history. Anyway, the people in Narayan take great pride in 'Il Chanson Du Ragwan'. Did you know the real Ragwan was a bloody-minded satyrist from the Pirate Times? He was half-brother to the last Pirate-King, dear, gentle, Roderique Wrothchilde. They called him Ragwan Bloody Pike. How I miss pirate double entendres! Now Ragwan would have burned a place like this to the ground, but not before wiping his ass on ... do you suppose those are real linens? And would you look at her. She was not born a redhead. Nor a woman. Take my word for it."</blockquote>

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