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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 3566032" data-attributes="member: 3887">[Todays update is brought to you by me and shilsen. Not to mention the letter 'C' and the number 42...]Interlude: Mystery Date, part 2 "You see young, potentially plum-sweet Meiji, there's  nothing wrong with talking. I approve of all idle and ambitious gossip. Just stay away from understanding like it's the plague, which, as a matter of fact, it is. Now shouldn't you being saying something about my eyes?""Actually," says Meiji, with a deadpan expression, "I was so rapt with the glorious sight of those limpid pools that are your twin orbs that I wasn't responding." "Twin orbs?! Are you certain you're talking about my eyes? I've been around the block a few times, Meiji. In directions that you'd have difficulty perceiving.""Eyes? What eyes? As far as being around the block a few times, in view of what you've told me, I can't argue with that. Maybe I can persuade you to show me some of these curves you've traced that I haven't..." "Careful, you're straying into understanding." "... or the curves that trace you, as the case may be." His grin broadens. "That's better. Keep your eyes on the prize. Where did you get 'limpid pools' from? That sounds like Arabia Wainwright's tripe. Have you been reading our literature?" He pauses like a small boy caught with his hands in the neighbor's daughter's cookie jar, then pats his pockets exaggeratedly before pulling out a page torn from a book. "Yes ... yes," he mutters aloud while looking at it, "Limpid pool ... twin orbs ... I think I got it all." Meiji looks back up at Eve and grins broadly. "Just making sure. I'd be reciting poetry to you already, but the primary Imperial poetic form usually has more to say about frogs leaping into ponds or cherry blossoms than about a lady's eyes. That was from 'At Long Last Lost Love', by the way. Burne's mechanical cat recommended it. He's quite the fan of Arabia Wainwright. Speaking of which, he - the cat, not Burne - offered to come along in an ... um, advisory capacity tonight." Eve half barks, half laughs, marveling at the sheer slippery weight of Meiji's personality, which against all odds manages to make what he's saying seductive, in a way that's not only foreign, but wholly foreign to the art of seduction. Meiji casts an appreciative eye at his dinner companion as she guffaws in distinctly unladylike manner. She's a little like Wu Shu, he thinks silently. Taller, of course. And probably less dangerous. Well, perhaps. Unfazed by the notion her date sought romantic advice from an alchemist's automatic cat, Eve says idly, 'Limpid' may be the least sexy word I know, and I should know, I've been hit on by pirates. It says to me 'tonight the flag will be flying no higher than half-mast', if at all. Needless to say, it's one of Arabia's favorites. 'Of course," says Meiji, listening with one ear while watching a spot on Eve considerably lower than hers. "I suppose there are worse introductions to CITY's culture, such as it is. At least Arabia's books are blissfully free of meaning. Except for those dreadful historical novels she wrote a few decades back. She's much older than she looks, you know. Those books have an ugly streak of truth in them." Meiji looks around the room and says, "This place is a little too crowded for my taste. Would you care to repair, milady, to a perhaps quieter and more intimate setting?" "I surely would. Should we go for something cozy or someplace with a progressive policy towards conjugal, I mean public displays of affection? Sorry, I was trying to shock you. Old habit. Did I mention I went to art school?"Meiji says nothing, simply turning his head slightly to hide the eye that began twitching wildly at the mention of the word 'conjugal' and letting Eve continue. "Let's see, cozy little restaurants... there's Piebald's, no wait, that was destroyed by a hurricane spun off the Sea of Storms... well, there's the Fireflower Hive, no, that was accidentally Gated to the Polar Wastes after a disastrous bar-bet during the Skulling Championships of 225. I've got it, the Zenith House, wait, no, they don't allow foreigners. Why don't you pick?" "I know just the place" says Meiji smoothly; having spent the afternoon scouting out places for his assignation with the Lady Eve, not to mention acquiring a lambskin prophylactic blessed by a trio of priests. He takes Eve's arm in his.  On the way, Meiji asks, "So how have you been keeping busy since you left us? I have a couple of - I think - amusing stories for you regarding what happened to our motley bunch since I saw you last. Which, of course, seems like it was far too long ago." "I took a walk, did some inquiring into my possible fates. I went... hmmm, just around the block, actually, in one of those directions you can't perceive that I mentioned earlier. I have to say you look much better without bat wings and the tail of a serpent." "So I spent a leisurely hour that would have taken much, much longer here, and spied a woman who bore a distinct resemblance to me, only older and decidedly less fabulous. The details, I'm afraid, are somewhat sketchy. I saw the woman put into a bottle made of bones. Like some cheap genie. As it happened I felt a chill along my spine, as if my soul was a cup of strong, sweet tea, and someone nasty had just taken a sip. Which I suppose isn't much like a chill at all. I am many cups of tea, Meiji, scattered hither and yon. Sweet Aja! Did I just say that? I sound like a bit from one of Arabia's 'foreign novels'. Have you read "Shogun, Show Me Your Heart" yet? Don't. Your people practice ritual suicide, don't they? As I was saying, I'm a little... everywhere. But I'm afraid Nadir might find a way of making me everywhere but here. At least long enough to take the Dominatrix Staff. So, how was your day?" Meiji is silent for a long moment after her description and then says, "Was it the future you saw? Or maybe I should say, a future." "You should indeed." Eve stands close enough to kiss Meiji. Or, if she was a Kabuki witch, muses Meiji, to consume his mortal soul. Not that he worries about the possibility, his  memory flitting back to the time when he let his soul 'and other things' be consumed thrice in one night by a particularly nubile Kabuki witch called...Meiji returns to the moment and, to hide his momentary displacement, says with a smile, "Wu Shu always said the future is like a box of dumplings. You never know what you've got until you bite into it. Then again, she also said that having too much gives you gas and bad breath."Eve takes a step back, with a barking laugh that suggests an inebriated seal from a declining nation that just got the joke. Meiji's eyes twinkle at the response. "Maybe it wasn't that great an analogy. Anyhow," he adds, "Though I'm rarely one for real gallantry and never one for getting myself into unnecessary danger, if I can help prevent Nadir from harming you, I will do so. And I mean you, specifically. I couldn't care less about the Staff." Even as he is speaking, Meiji wonders, Now what made me that honest? And he is not completely pleasantly surprised at the realization that he does actually care, if not to a great extent, about Eve's welfare. Hmm, he muses, She's getting to me. Strange.The shugenja opens his mouth to continue, but Eve cuts him off with the skill of a woman who's been talking at men for centuries, "How silly of me! I wanted to show you my nails. I had them done when I was... around the corner." Eve takes hold of one of Meiji's hands, while pushing her other into his face, deliberately brushing one cheek. Up close, he sees her fingernails are painted in undulating bands of red. The eddy currents in her nails are hypnotic and Meiji feels fear, elation, and a hint of burning almonds rise up it him. "It won't last long. Manicures seldom do. A few hours ago they had a far richer emotional subtext, though on the down side everything I touched turned into something that looked like amber." She smiles sweetly at Meiji, and grips his hand even harder.  Meiji's sense of vague disquiet, caused by experiencing feelings as alien as concern about another being, isn't helped by Eve's display of her strangely-decorated hands. So he reacts the way he always does when something scares him --he fakes both nonchalance and a high level of confidence. Smiling brightly at her, he reaches up to take her raised hand, though he is careful to avoid touching the nails. He cocks his head to look at the pattern and says, "Pretty." Then he bends over to kiss her on the back of the hand, lingering slightly longer than needed. "Pretty tasty too," he smiles as he straightens up. Then, looking over her shoulder, he quickly adds, "Ah, here we are," indicating the restaurant they've been heading towards. "Let's get a table and then I can tell you what we've been up to. Let's just say, in short, that Kenji and Rackhir went off without Burne and me and managed to get beaten up by Nadir and also ... as I think they say it in the idiom here ... pimped us out to the Gondoliers Guild and partly to the Shirac. Oh joy!"Meiji Kitsumi awoke the next morning from unsettling dreams, one in particular which involved one beautiful woman and another with demonic wings but a terrific rack, to find his... 'rod of manhood'... not transformed, as per most mornings, into one of the Pillars of Heaven, rather wrung out like a snake that had been attacked overnight by a pack of shadows."That was one hell of a date" says Meiji to himself, grinning. That is, until he realizes he can't remember a minute of it after leaving the restaurant arm in arm with the Lady Eve.</blockquote>

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