/flips subject titles into the trash

[speedofnaked]

WHO: Terra & OPEN
WHERE: The City
WHEN: Tuesday, May 24th, between the hours of 7am and 7pm.
WARNINGS: I DON'T KNOW. SAP?
WHAT: Esperchan. Doing... things... literally just roaming around town all day so just about anywhere you want it to be, it can be. Except central park because haha walking around Illidan's back yard, no.
WORDS: yes...

Comments

[inthirds]

What a coincidence! Zelgadis wasn't entirely sure how to go about being a boyfriend, let alone catering to the girl variety. Of course, he had a kind of coach he could (and did) express a need for, but...well, he had to figure things out for himself, didn't he?

Getting up late and finding himself alone wasn't the greatest starting point, but then, when had his life ever given him anything but lemons? To the lemonade stand with you, boy. By which this tag means go out and do something.

So he does. He's not completely at a loss, at least; he had that (sadly tilted to the lecherous) awareness picked up from life with Rodimus and Zolf, which, of course, held very little water when he wound up traveling with actual women. But those women were crazy, and hardly helped in situations like this. Couples were pretty impossible to ignore in such a populated city, though, so he could glean some ideas. It was all a lot of touching, though...And he wasn't exactly the most touchable, much to his dismay. He needed something else

[speedofnaked]

It was hard not to notice Zelgadis; he never dressed time-period appropriate, or weather-appropriate, so even without the blue skin or weapons or face masks, he tended to stand out in crowds. For Terra, it was even harder - she didn't even need eyes to notice him.

It made it easy to spot him long before he noticed her, and for the moment Terra was a little hesitant to make her presence known. It wasn't often that she saw him out and about, and Terra was curious about his habits. She was curious about a lot of things, really, but it only got worse where he was concerned.

It wasn't really stalking.

[inthirds]

He wasn't exactly sure what he was looking for, so naturally he wound up paying more attention to things that interested him. Particularly the drafting tools that were on display in a campus book supply store. He had a habit of scratching at his cheek or stroking his chin with consideration in situations like that (for all the good it did), musing about this or that. It was nice to see some familiar items, but the measuring systems were foreign. He'd have to get back into the habit of studying up. With the City going to hell and back every other day, though...

The green hair was hard to pick up on first glance, reflected on the glass, so there was a slow double-take. He could've just imagined it - he seemed to do a lot of that in her regard, after all - but something told him to pay more attention. He turned around and blinked.

"Terra-?"

[speedofnaked]

Caught, there wasn't much Terra can do but smile and hold her hand up in a stationary wave for greeting, dropping it as she cut through the milling crowd. It wasn't too difficult to get close to Zelgadis himself, since there seemed to be a practical bubble of empty space around him. He stood out, and people who stood out were usual imPorts, and it was never wise to get too physically close to them.

"Hey." The smile was etched more deeply into one cheek than the other, and her gaze drifted from his face to the window. "What're you looking at?"

[inthirds]

"Hey."

Butterflies as usual, but not from a source of dread for a change. It was a relief to see her, considering she wasn't there when he got up earlier in the day. Half a smile was there in response to hers, straightening up and turning partway to her.

Oh. Right. Looking at...Zelgadis glanced back down to the window. "Just something that looked a little familiar. I don't think it works the same from what I know, though."

[speedofnaked]

Terra tilted her head back his way to listen, but not enough to turn her gaze from the window; as he answered, she drew closer to the glass, peering in more closely. Familiar they were to Zelgadis, but not to her. As far as she remembered, her party had never used things such as that, and it wasn't like Terra herself was a budding cartographer or anything of the sort. Reflected in the glass, her expression was scrunched up with curiosity.

"What are they?" she asked, finally turning to glance over her shoulder.

[inthirds]

"Measuring items, looks like," he said, head tilting a little in their regard. "I thought I saw a sextant there at first, but it wasn't. It looks more like things for drawing up designs for structures."

He leaned down a little, peering. "And the paper is gridded...that's probably it."

[speedofnaked]

Her attention slid his way as he spoke. It wasn't precisely surprise she felt as he explained, but it wasn't completely devoid of that, either. Her feelings were usually a tangled mess where he was concerned.

"Sextant?"

[inthirds]

"Yeah."

Zelgadis glanced over, looking for a note of regard before going on. Seeing none, then, "I have one from back home. Used it to mark my location in measurements off of maps. It's a little worn out, but...it hasn't gotten much use in this place. I don't know the star positions here well enough to use it perfectly."

[speedofnaked]

Terra leaned back a little from the window itself, visibly satisfied by the explanation; no crinkle to her brow for concentration. The information itself was safely stored in the back of her mind, hidden behind a soft smile. "They're hard to see at all," she offered back.

Her hands moved from the window to hang at her sides, then rest on her hips, then slip back down, nervous in gesture. Was she supposed to link arms with him? Hold his hand? It was hard to tell how to act, when what she wanted and what he wanted seemed to be at odds.

Her voice, at least, was more steady. "You did a lot of traveling in your own world... right?"

[inthirds]

Somehow, he hadn't picked up on the various uncertain moves right away. The discussion was distraction enough, curbing any pressure to be any different than usual. He nodded, once for the remark and twice for the question.

"I never liked staying in one place too long," he said, his shoulders shrugging a little. "And towns and cities back there didn't have all the same things like this place seems to."

[speedofnaked]

It was a bit of familiar territory. Their worlds were superficially similar, so comparing the two was an easy task. "It was the same for me... mostly," she hedged. It was less a lack of desire to stay in one place and simply a lack of ability to do so. They were always being pursued, and the things they needed were always so far-flung away from one another. If nothing else, it was demonstration of the strength of the Empire, whose forces had spread across oceans and continents. "And all the towns were much smaller... even Vector was a rat's house compared to this."

[inthirds]

More things the same, then. Zelgadis' gaze drew back down to the items behind glass, though the focus shifted to Terra's reflection. He was suddenly struck with a pang of uncertainty that would've caused a sweat if his body could've obliged, but thankfully that was not so.

"Is it," he started, swallowing and glancing quickly between her and the glass, "something you'd want to know how to do? Mapping locations out. It's...not really useful in this place, s...so, maybe not, but--"

[speedofnaked]

The direct question drew her gaze back from the window, eyes blinking in her usual surprise and confusion. It wasn't the sort of question she was expecting, and her wide-eyed expression mellowed down to embarrassment, gaze slinking from Zelgadis's face to the books stacked in the lower end of the display.

"I..." was uncertain, eyetooth hooking on her lip for a moment of pause, voice quieter. "I've never really..." 'had scholarly pursuits' was a kind way of putting it, but Terra was much more of a doer than a thinker. If she couldn't learn it by doing, it wasn't something she'd been taught. (Weapons hardly needed critical thinking skills.)

It was an embarrassing failing in a world where everyone seemed to be a scholar. Color intensified in her cheeks, eyes flicking between the display and Zelgadis. Not that he would understand how her thought process was traveling; with how she continued, it could have easily just been flushed at the offer.

"Would you... want to?"

[inthirds]

If asked or taken to reflecting, Zelgadis would have absolutely no idea when, exactly, the offer went from mundane to something significant, but he was sure, despite his awkward delivery, that it was an innocent enough thing to say. He turned to look back when the single syllable hung in the air as prelude to her reply and began to feel as though he had perhaps overstepped. So returned purple ears.

"I don't mind," he said quickly, hands up in a show of...well, he wasn't really thinking when his hands went up as they did. "But if you'd rather not, that's fine, too."

[speedofnaked]

Flustered and unsure where to put her feet in the conversation, Terra's hand combed through loose bangs, as though moving to tuck them behind her ear and failing.

"If you want to, I'd.. like that."

Hormones, ladies and gentlemen.