"I have been avoiding this city for over a fucking century because I know that. I know. And I knew it would piss me off because I wanted to know," but he didn't go into further detail, just sitting on the floor. That's about all he was good for right now. Chairs seemed too sophisticated for a creature. He listened though. He was very good at listening even if his eyes were closed. Maybe it helped because he wasn't hyperfocused at glaring at a wall as if somehow he'd spawn heat beams like those shitty modern comics.
Ariel scoffed slightly as Amadeus described what had happened to the place he had lived before. Not in mocking but disdain at what the kine had done. Yeah, he could understand some of that - maybe not the 1500-years worth of history. Italy had changed so many times from the Roman era to the modern-day. But now it was his turn.
"I get that. I do," he paused, eyebrows furrowed together, inhaling even though he didn't need to before he spoke, "I came to New York when I was... I'm not sure. Small. Didn't speak a lick of English. Vengo da Maletto, in Sicilia. If we'd been northerners, we would have been white. They called us dago, wop, eyetie, white ni--" he cut himself off, realizing he was going off on a tangent, "They lynched us, murdered us because we dared to think we weren't 'inferior' as they'd labeled anyone with darker skin. We fought to live in that fucking shithole tenement and now it's just some shitty restaurant. The only Italian thing in Little Italy is a handful of pizza joints. Our legacy is convincing people Columbus discovered America just for a hint of clout and the goddamned mafia. That's it. That's what we get in America."
Ariel trailed off, his fingers idly pulling at the skin on his bottom lip as if he might just peel it off in thought - a bad habit really. "All that's left for me there is a handful of names carved in a wood beam that I can't even put faces to. And I think that's what made me angrier than the restaurant - that I'm forgetting too."