debonairmonk (debonairmonk) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-07-10 21:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, cyclone kapur, drake liu |
there's something sweet, and almost kind, but he was mean and he was coarse and unrefined
Who: Drake & Cyclone~
What: It's a date! For dessert!
Where: Rue Lainerie
When: Backdated June 24th (right after Leviathan whoops~)
Rating: PG
Status: Complete!
It wasn’t until it was nearly time for him to meet Cy that he’d even remembered about their date. He’d been looking forward to it until the second attack at the Docks, Aspel’s sudden incapacitation and Ari’s frail emotional state. But it was too late to back out now, and really, if he was honest, he needed the break. Between the wedding and the fighting, an evening filled with delicious desserts sound like the just the thing he needed.
He finished up the last of the paperwork - he’d have to run some of it by Aspel, which he was loath to do as she should be focusing on recovering, but these weren’t decisions he could or should make alone - and headed out, grabbing the nearest crystal. He stopped by his apartment to change into a new shirt as he’d spilled tea all of the hem of the one he’d worn earlier and had to wear one of his training tunics for the remainder of the day.
By the time he got to where he was supposed to meet Cy, he was only five minutes early.
She, on the other hand, wasn’t there yet.
Cyclone prided herself on being hopelessly punctual, treating social engagements with the same acumen that she did business. But Monday, being only one day after the dock attack, made the queues practically stretch around the block at lunchtime and she found herself swamped with work, trying her best to usher patients through and fill prescriptions and check insurance at a breakneck pace. The clinic stayed open later than usual – the harried people of Emillion needed their cures and potions and ethers, and Hier & Kapur needed their well-earned gil. Being a private practice had its pros and its cons.
So she came scurrying down the street five minutes late, dodging and weaving through the crowd, nimbly ducking storefronts and clusters of people to finally emerge by Drake’s side. Many mages had to be light on their feet, and she proved it just then.
“Hi,” Cy said breathlessly, flashing a grin at the patiently-waiting monk. “Sorry about that. Normally I’m right on time for these things – pencil it in like stone! – but today’s been absolutely hectic, as you could probably imagine...”
Drake laughed, shaking his head. “Hectic is one word for it,” he agreed. “I’d probably use insane.” He hadn’t realized just how much work it was being Council; no wonder it was split into the number of positions. One person handling all of the work would likely burn out in a week. But now wasn’t the time to think about the endless piles of papers littering his desk - or how it would double by morning.
“Did you get caught out in that disaster?” he asked. He still hadn’t managed to figure out who all had been out there aside from the ones he’d seen or fought with. His concern had been the city and Ari - and, later, Aspel - which had left him with little time to survey his surroundings. Not the smartest thing for a fighter, especially one who wore no armor and fought with his fists, but he’d come to realize that emergency situations didn’t really adhere to the basic common sense of combat.
“Yeah, if by ‘caught out’ you mean ‘summoned to the call of duty’.” Cy didn’t roll her eyes, but she certainly sounded droll and a little bemused. “Every time one of these cataclysms hits, the respective councils seem to send out word and call for spare hands. And I figured I needed the practice, and my magic could help some fighters, so...”
A pause. “And, well, alright. I was down there shopping for dinner anyway. I’m guessing you were out there too?”
“What gave it away?” he asked wryly, chuckling. “I’d just gotten back from Ordalia for my mom’s wedding. Every time I leave the city and come back, the docks get attacked.” He shook his head and shrugged. Maybe that was the city’s way of telling him that he wasn’t ever allowed to leave again. Ever. He wouldn’t be surprised, really.
“Synergy is always welcome,” he agreed. “And you and Guy are my favorite synergists.” The smile was charming with an edge of flirtation. He liked Cy, and despite her unfortunate occupation as Cormac’s keeper, he’d really meant to try to get to know her better.
Her own smile seemed to flutter nervously; the instant Drake’s usual lackadaisical manner edged towards flirtation, part of her seemed to tense up and go rigid. But she waved it off with another (truthful) joke: “You only say that because we’re some of the only synergists.”
It wasn’t one of the harder classes – not like arithmancy or geomancy – but it was one of the most thankless ones. A synergist spent their entire life playing second fiddle, being the shoulders on which others stood. She couldn’t even cast any offensive or curative magic of her own.
“Anyway,” Cy said, seeming to shake herself back to attention. “Rue Lainerie first? I want to take advantage of that discount, and we can talk as we go. And I will even grant you the honour of saying you’re my favourite monk.”
“Of course,” he agreed, holding out his arm for her to take if she wanted. His mother and grandmother had raised a gentleman, though he knew it was in preparation for wooing a nice girl that he would then marry and have several children with. His mother loved to remind him of that dear hope of hers whenever she had the chance.
“And,” he added as they walked, “I happen to know quite a few synergists.” Well, actually, he knew one other synergist, and she was the biggest grouch he had ever met in his life. She’d had dreams of grandeur and becoming a geomancer, but she’d sucked at everything aside from synergy spells. Drake knew this first hand since she’d tried practicing them on him. Fire, he’d learned once he’d left his hometown, wasn’t supposed to feel like a pleasant beam of sunlight.
"Oh? Do you?" Her arm rested loosely around his, their elbows hooked. "What are they like? I mean, apart from Guy. I know Guy."
“Mean,” he admitted. “And she didn’t like me.” It hadn’t helped that she had been his ex-fiancee’s best friend, either. “Let’s talk about dessert,” he decided. Remembering that woman just made his head hurt; he didn’t actively dislike anyone, but she was pretty close. It hadn’t helped that she had been at the wedding. “What kinds do you like?”
He was trying to remember what exactly Rue Lainerie had, since he rarely went to these kinds of places. They were slightly pricey, and gil - while never horribly tight - wasn’t something he’d ever gotten into throwing around for the fun of it. But the promotion and the gil given to him for helping out had padded his accounts for a little while, and splurging on sweets was never a bad thing.
Maybe he’d bring something back for Ari.
Cyclone noted the abrupt shift in topic – observation was a useful skill in her line of work, since patients often tried to skim over the details that actually happened to be the most pertinent. Everything had to be laid bare for the physician.
But this, of course, wasn’t work; Drake was allowed to skip over whatever he wanted. “Cheese pastries,” she answered, remembering traditional Ordalian cooking. “And anything with figs. Generally more savoury rather than sweet. You?”
As they approached the bakery, her hand lightly touched the wallet resting in her coat pocket, as if to reassure herself that it was still there. Cormac had handed her some extra cash just earlier that day, along with a certain mission vis a vis Drake Liu.
“I like most things with fruit in them,” he admitted. “Pies, tarts, cookies. I never developed much of a sweet tooth.” The foods back home had never used much sugars and sweeteners, and he’d found that so much sugar and frosting and icing was too strong of a taste. Something about it had always seemed artificial about it, but he usually just attributed that to his upbringing. “My mom used to make this really bitter chocolate cake,” he added. “I haven’t found anything like it since getting here.”
“Obviously, this means we should try baking it. Do you have the recipe? Are you any good in the kitchen?”
Drake shook his head. “I can make pretty basic things that don’t require the use of an oven or stove,” he told her. “It’s something I’ve meant to learn how to do, but I’ve never got around to it.” And he doubted that he would get to it any time soon. “But I do have the recipe if you want to try your hand at it.” His mother had armed him with several different recipes, all of which he still had. Somewhere.
Their destination was now in sight and Drake grinned, opening the door for Cy. “After you, my lady.”
She heaved an exaggerated (and obviously feigned) sigh, rolling her eyes at Drake’s display of chivalry. “I don’t need to be coddled, you know,” Cy said as she walked past him, with all the air of a sulky twenty-something... but she felt a twinge of delight at his gesture nonetheless. Delight that she stamped out as firmly as she could.
Once they were inside and standing before rows upon rows of freshly-made goods, she shot her companion another look as she grabbed a tray and started filling up. Perhaps it was time to deploy the secret weapon:
“I love making food for people, so I’d gladly give it a try. But my mum would probably say something about how I should only cook for my future husband. That wouldn’t be you, would it?”
“Nope,” he said, visibly twitching. Sometimes, he wondered if maybe Cy really just liked to tease him. It wouldn’t surprise him - it seemed to be a favorite pastime of most of the women he knew. “But you could practice on me. I never say no to food.”
He turned his attention to the displays and immediately zeroed in on the tarts. Two ended up on his tray, along with a few other things that he couldn’t name. “So, what kinds of things do you like to cook, Cy?”
Well, that didn’t entirely work. It looked like her bonus from Cormac was going to have to go unclaimed – how did you make Drake Liu panic over commitment when you weren’t entangled with him? Her feeble attempt at teasing stymied, Cy now seemed to relax. It was done, and she wouldn’t have to prod at that particular trigger any more. It felt too much like shooting herself in the foot more than tormenting Drake.
“Curries,” she answered plainly. “Because I’m nothing if I’m not perpetuating cultural stereotypes, yeah? I can also make some amazing peppered fish. I was on my way down to the docks to buy some yesterday when, well...”
A shrug of the shoulders, as she nabbed a hazelnut cream pastry, a slice of fig loaf, and a piece of fluffy white bread. “When that enormous sea-serpent thing tried to drown us all and my plans of eating seafood ever again were utterly ruined.”
Somehow, he wasn’t surprised that this was where the conversation had drifted. He sighed. “Yeah, I know how that feels,” he sympathized. Most of his diet consisted of vegetables, rice, and fish. After seeing that serpent and nearly being drowned, eating fish wasn’t exactly the most appealing thought. Although it would probably make him feel better if he was pretending to eat the Faram forsaken thing.
“Speaking of cultural stereotypes,” he said. “I can’t cook rice. I’m a horrible person, my mother tells me. Apparently, not being able to make rice makes me horrible husband material.” Which was just the way he liked it, if he was honest.
Cy arched a skeptical eyebrow, driven to a halt by the enormity of what she’d just heard.
“Wait. You can’t cook rice? Drake, it’s literally the easiest staple. You stick it in a pot of boiling water, then you take it out. There’s no way anyone could muck that up.”
“You’ve never seen me cook,” he pointed out. “Somehow, it always comes out wrong.” Drake and making things that required heat never went well together. “You should see me cook meat. It’s always charred.” He didn’t mention that the only time he ever cooked meat was over an open fire when he was outside of the city. Or that he only used his stove to boil water for tea.
Actually, now that he was thinking about it, did he even have pots and pans anymore?
“As were you, once upon a time,” Cy said mildly, with a bit of a mischievous smile as she slid smoothly into the queue for the till. “Charred, that is.”
“I see how it is,” he said, feigning hurt. “If this is how you treat your dates, I’ll never ask you out again.” Lightly, he kicked her foot and squeezed ahead of her. He really hoped she wasn’t planning on paying; he’d been the one to ask her, so it was only natural that he pay.
She made an indignant noise, audible behind his back, but didn’t seem to make a move to shove back in front of him. “You’re cutting! We’re very serious about queue etiquette in Ordalia. You could probably get shivved for that sort of thing, back there.”
Drake tossed her a grin over his shoulder. “I’m from Southern Ordalia,” he told her, “and we’re very serious about not letting our dates pay for their food.” He paused for effect. “You could get shanked for it, and no one would blame the person who inserted the knife ever.”
Cy snorted, barely managing to hide what was on the verge of being an unbridled laughterfit. “Oh, north is north, and south is south, and never the twain shall meet,” she muttered, bastardising a line of verse by Ripling. “Fine. I’ll let you be the gentleman, if it makes you feel any better.”
Calling this a date – twice – was enough to give her pause and gnaw her lip. Dates could be casual things, weren’t they? Especially for someone like Drake, who was notorious for not going lonely when it came to the female sex. Either way, while they waited, she nudged his side with her elbow – the only free gesture she could make, Cy’s arms otherwise laden with the tray. “Thanks for coming out, by the way. I know the city’s an utter madhouse, and you probably had lots of work to do, being a big important council member and all.” She was tall enough to lean up on her tiptoes and address his ear, peering over his shoulder.
Her voice was practically in his ear, and he a quick glance told him she was looking over his shoulder. “All work and no play,” he said, mostly to himself. “I needed a break, and your company is always charming.” When she wasn’t making jabs about commitment, or playing go-between with him and Cormac. Cy was a genuinely nice person, and he enjoyed spending time with people he liked. For him, it was as simple as that.
“The city will survive one night of me not being behind my desk. It’s survived several of them already.”
“Is there any correlation between you leaving your desk and these enormous city-wide disasters occurring? Maybe it’s your fault.”
“Only when I leave the city,” he muttered. The first attack at the docks had come right as he’d gotten back from a job with Vivi, and the second had come as he’d gotten back from his mother’s wedding. Clearly, the city just didn’t like it when he left. “Anyway,” he continued as the queue moved forward, “what about you? Will Cormac survive the night without his lovely assistant?”
“He’ll just have to find a way. Maybe build an effigy of me, set it on a track in front of the window to pretend I’m still in.” Lovely was a nice word, and Cy flushed at the flattery – good thing her complexion hid the worst of it, and she wasn’t facing her companion anyway. But they finally reached the front of the queue, and she fidgeted from foot-to-foot while Drake paid for them both. “Sit outside?” she offered. “It’s a beautiful day, and sometimes I feel like I don’t get out enough. Hard at work, you know how it goes.”
She gestured vaguely, as if to indicate her lovely boss.
“Sure,” Drake agreed easily. Sitting outside sounded like a great idea, and he knew all too well lately how it felt to not get out enough. Plus, as Cy had pointed out, it was a beautiful day, so he led the way and opened the door to the patio for her, carefully balancing his tray with one hand and waiting for her to pass him.
There were a few open tables, and he gestured for her to pick one.
She took a table along the wall of the bakery, and chose the innermost seat where she could watch the people passing by in the street, the ebb and flow of the crowd. People-watching was one of Cy’s favourite pasttimes when she could find the time for it.
Once they’d seated themselves, however, with the trays of treats in front of them, Cyclone found that she was at a loss for what to say. This wasn’t a business transaction, nor a healing session, nor a training session – this time, she wasn’t passing through the Fighters Guild with Guy and selling buffs to all the joking, jostling warriors. It was an honest-to-Faram social call. So what was she supposed to do?
“Soooooo,” she said, picking at her hazelnut pastry.
He’d just taken a bite of his strawberry tart - he really needed make more time to come back here because the tarts were to die for - when Cy spoke. Swallowing, he grinned. “Soooo,” he repeated teasingly. “What do you do for fun?” He really hoped that her only form entertainment was not picking up after Cormac.
There was no need to let the conversation get awkward, after all. If there was anything Drake was good at, it was putting people at ease, even at the expense of himself. If things started to stall, he was sure he could regale her with tales of all of his stupid, boneheaded injuries. At the very least, she could tsk at him. People seemed to enjoy doing that to him.
The question was a good one, and shouldn’t have taken quite this long to answer. But Cy was silent for a while, reeling through her life and the last few weeks, trying in vain to come up with some kind of hobby.
“Uh,” she said. “I study and read about magic. And comparative mythology, I suppose. And tinker with engineering a bit – I’m not a machinist by any means, but I’m interested in seeing how my sort of magic could be used for machinery, especially prosthetics. What if there was an auto-refreshing Haste or Protect on a mechanical leg, for example? It could help people so much.” Drake had done one thing right, at least: the question managed to open the floodgates and have Cy prattling about her interests, even if said interests... sounded suspiciously like work.
She was kind of cute when she went on like this, he thought, grinning. Admittedly, Drake and magic didn’t get on well - he was the first person he knew in his old Guild who couldn’t cast Cure to save his life - so he didn’t have much to contribute on that point. But comparative mythology was another thing. “Comparative mythology?” he asked. “I’ve read a few books about that. Haven’t met many people here who give it much thought, though.”
Most people he knew were either Pharist or not - it didn’t seem like there was room for a middle ground. Back home, there had been a smattering of religions, with Pharism being dominant, but it had been easier to find people to have conversations about spiritual well-being that didn’t immediately end with “go and see the priest.”
“I was a graduate student at the University, once upon a time Before Cormac,” she admitted. B.C.: Before Cormac. “And that brought me more exposure to Pharism than I’ve ever had before. The Kapurs, we’re not... well, I mean. We’re not exactly Pharists.” It was a hesitant confession. Her cousins – rich, moneyed nobility – were much more confident and open about this sort of thing, but Cy always did the equivalent of slinking in the back door, hoping no one would notice.
“So I’ve read a lot about Ordalian myths and religion, and some of the Fi’noi stuff. It’s interesting to see where the Saint Ajora stories have spread. Where the idea of espers still have a strong hold. Things like that.” There was a brief pause before Cy backpedalled, waving her fig loaf in the air. “Not to say that I believe in the espers as such! I mean. I don’t think... Well, you know what I mean,” she finished, lamely.
Drake nodded. “I’ve read many of the Ordalian myths and lived in an area that had a mix of religions,” he told her, taking another bite of his tart. “I haven’t read anything on the Fi’noi religions, so I don’t really know much about those. As for the espers...” He paused, trying to figure out what he wanted to say about them. “I think it makes sense that there were several beings rather than just one.”
It was the most tactful way to put it, and it wasn’t a very popular opinion. He didn’t think that Pharism was wrong, per se, but he wasn’t sure that it was entirely right either. It was really difficult to put his thoughts on the matter into words, especially when it wasn’t something he spoke of often. The few times he’d mentioned not being entirely Pharist had earned him looks he’d rather not have. Easier to go with the crowd, as it were.
And now that he was Council and needed to keep up appearances, he was in Church at least a few times a month.
Cy tilted her head, taking in the man’s tactful hedging with an arch of her eyebrow. Somehow, it came as a shock. Not that Drake seemed the most pious sort to begin with, but the devout seemed in far greater supply here in Emillion, after all. She always just assumed...
“It’s interesting,” she conceded. Which was possibly the vaguest thing she could say, but it also seemed the safest. Picking at her plate, she managed to tear apart the last of her pastry and pop it in her mouth. Chewing around a mouthful of flaky dough, she grinned at the monk, then swallowed.
“Enough of that. Let’s go on to the second bakery – I still have room for more.” As much as she looked like a skinny beanpole, Cy had a ferocious appetite that could rival some fighters.
And she wasn’t quite done with Drake’s company yet, either.