mirror mirror, on the wall, what do you give someone who has it all?
Hiroto is bored. He's spent awhile, a week or so, learning the ins and outs of this Chicago place, and so far what he's learning is that he doesn't like it much. Too many rules, not enough outs for when he breaks them. And as far as he can tell, his family isn't nearly as powerful here as they were back home, which means he can't just go back to
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When he describes the things he does at work, she starts doodling again, little monsters that look suspiciously like twin monsters and a werewolf starting to dominate one side of the page. The other side will probably have a Des (or, well, a Des-like person anyway) eventually, if she doesn't get distracted by a train stop.
"Work keeps one sane, or drives one insane as the case may be. What sort of cases? Interesting ones? Or can't you say because of confidentiality?" Sure, she doesn't exactly know what he does, but hey, he mentioned killing monsters. How, exactly, that relates to patient confidentiality is a jump of logic that only Babel brains can make, apparently.
Then she adds, "Me too, too flitty since the plagues, before. I'm glad you found my company." This is accompanied by a quick little fluttering of the hand with the marker in it, and then she goes back to drawing. Des-person's hair seems to be getting away from him. Accidentally. These things happen with markers.
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He shifts a bit, so that he's sitting sprawled across the seat with his back to the window and his chin resting on the seat so he can continue to watch Babel. "Me too, sunshine." He notes the hair on his marker-drawing avatar and promptly runs a hand through his as if to make sure it isn't doing weird things.
"I guess the plagues got everyone twitchy, huh?" He adds after letting his hand drop back to his lap, even though that's the least helpful conversation piece.
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She nods at his question, a little sombre all of a sudden. "Tastes of the apocalypse tend to do that to people, make them look at their mortality," she says, eyeing the drawing and then sticking it to the seat across the way from them. "Stare at the abyss, it gives you the evil eye and then suddenly everyone remembers there are things in heaven and hell greater than their philosophy." Ignore the fact that she mangled that quote. She cares not.
"But the fog's clearing, now," she remarks, leaning on the back of the seat Des is leaning on, gesturing to what you can see of the city between the papers she's tacked on the windows. It's not the prettiest sight, but it's there. "Things rebuild."
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His expression droops a bit and he rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck. "Ain't that the truth." He keeps forgetting that mortality isn't just for other people, that heaven and hell are more like concepts in this place, and that nothing is as it really seems here. Four thousand years and maybe he'll understand everything that's in this place like he did his world, but he doesn't have that much time. It's a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, but one he's also content to cover up.
He follows her gaze out the window and his smile returns, just faintly. Mortal or immortal, the fact that things continue on is always easily appreciated. "Life goes on," he murmurs. "Cities burn, people die, but this much is forever."
This city's probably never going to fall. At least something here is immortal, even if he's not.
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