(no subject)
Who: Garr and OPEN
When: A general weekend entry and one for a Friday afternoon (the latter at least within the last week or two, as Garr hasn't been employed that long)
Where: Winthers Lake, Name Of Generic Cheap Bar Here
Summary: A great big Buddhist space chicken gargoyle going about his days. Are you a bad enough dude to bother him?
Warnings: Life/work got crazy on me again which delayed this post a bit, and I may continue to be slowish. I tag forever and ever, though. I'm also open to putting up additional scene hooks if asked. As for actual warnings...eh, booze in the latter thread option, I guess.
***
There is something deeply unsettling about Siren's Port. More than the barely-there sensation of something unwelcome and alien humming in his insides, more than the curious (and frequently annoying) experience of living in a world without a thousand Clans to mask his presence...no, it is the concrete that unsettles him, the vast walls of glass and steel and the whirr and stink of smoke and machinery. Nearly every building a tower, signs painted in light, and everywhere little boxes that flash with the shapes and voices of people.
Siren's Port is Caer Xhan come to life again, the weathered, withered ruins meticulously pieced together and wiped clean of the desert. Maybe the monsters only come out at night, here, and the machines still have masters, and there is no orbital station - no house of God in the skies or scattered as wreckage across the earth - but the familiar strangeness gnaws at him and turns his fire-hot blood to ice.
In place of the Desert of Death, there is Darkness.
There are still green places on the island, and on those days when he is not looking for work (or working, later on) Garr goes and finds them. The wilderness is not vast enough to suit him; in lands like his own he would have vanished at once into the mountains for a year or ten, living on gathered plants and hunting wild goats and probably (what had the accusation been, again?) thinking far too much. The thought is still tempting - sleep and spear-fish in the day, fight for survival at night, and if he dies then he dies - but also reckless and foolish and, for now, unnecessary.
It is enough to feel grass and fallen leaves and dirt under his feet again, instead of dead asphalt and concrete. It is enough to take the time to learn where the park lands are, and the campgrounds (so he can avoid the latter). It is enough to find the less crowded places near the lake, where he can stretch his wings and breathe the quiet.
Siren's Port is not warm or dry or dusty enough to remind him of home, but all things considered that is probably for the best.
***
Garr, like most Urkans, has never been one to have many expenses. What money he picked up for killing out-of-control monsters or winning the occasional tournament was usually enough to last a long while. Trips into towns to supplement whatever food he'd been able to find or kill on his own. A few medical supplies, not that he had ever needed many. A night under a roof in an actual bed, if he were feeling generous with himself. Sometimes information had a price and he'd spend for that too. And if he bought more than he needed when he went back to Urkan Tapa--
(Please, holy one, it is a gift.)
(A gift for a gift, sister. Feed your children.)
(I...bless you, Guardian.)
(Go with God.)
--well, he could hardly be blamed for that.
The old Guardian has only ever allowed himself one real vice, a personal rule he still follows now. Alcohol is a thing forbidden by neither his native culture nor his own personal vows to God (and wherever She is now, whatever conflicts they've had, those vows still matter); if he drinks less than he could probably afford it is not for any law or vow, only for self-discipline's sake. He has known far too many drunks over the years and doesn't plan to end up like any of them.
Some days that's harder than others.
Now that he's found work and sorted out the more practical business of renting a room in another sector - it's a rougher end of town but he can afford it, and rough neighborhoods he can handle - there's no reason to not allow himself his one vice again. There are bars his new co-workers frequent after the end of a shift; Garr very specifically goes somewhere else.
His standards aren't high. He picks a smaller building, just run-down enough to look like a bar, one without a huge boisterous roar of crowded drunks and music spilling out into the streets. The bartender isn't quite jaded enough to avoid a double-take, but Garr pointedly slaps the first several (large) drinks' worth of money in front of him and says "Tell me you have furniture that can hold up under four hundred pounds and I'll stay out of your way." A couple of the patrons are almost as big or as bulky as he is, so the odds of that look promising, and he's not disappointed.
After that, he and the bartender get along just fine.
When: A general weekend entry and one for a Friday afternoon (the latter at least within the last week or two, as Garr hasn't been employed that long)
Where: Winthers Lake, Name Of Generic Cheap Bar Here
Summary: A great big Buddhist space chicken gargoyle going about his days. Are you a bad enough dude to bother him?
Warnings: Life/work got crazy on me again which delayed this post a bit, and I may continue to be slowish. I tag forever and ever, though. I'm also open to putting up additional scene hooks if asked. As for actual warnings...eh, booze in the latter thread option, I guess.
***
There is something deeply unsettling about Siren's Port. More than the barely-there sensation of something unwelcome and alien humming in his insides, more than the curious (and frequently annoying) experience of living in a world without a thousand Clans to mask his presence...no, it is the concrete that unsettles him, the vast walls of glass and steel and the whirr and stink of smoke and machinery. Nearly every building a tower, signs painted in light, and everywhere little boxes that flash with the shapes and voices of people.
Siren's Port is Caer Xhan come to life again, the weathered, withered ruins meticulously pieced together and wiped clean of the desert. Maybe the monsters only come out at night, here, and the machines still have masters, and there is no orbital station - no house of God in the skies or scattered as wreckage across the earth - but the familiar strangeness gnaws at him and turns his fire-hot blood to ice.
In place of the Desert of Death, there is Darkness.
There are still green places on the island, and on those days when he is not looking for work (or working, later on) Garr goes and finds them. The wilderness is not vast enough to suit him; in lands like his own he would have vanished at once into the mountains for a year or ten, living on gathered plants and hunting wild goats and probably (what had the accusation been, again?) thinking far too much. The thought is still tempting - sleep and spear-fish in the day, fight for survival at night, and if he dies then he dies - but also reckless and foolish and, for now, unnecessary.
It is enough to feel grass and fallen leaves and dirt under his feet again, instead of dead asphalt and concrete. It is enough to take the time to learn where the park lands are, and the campgrounds (so he can avoid the latter). It is enough to find the less crowded places near the lake, where he can stretch his wings and breathe the quiet.
Siren's Port is not warm or dry or dusty enough to remind him of home, but all things considered that is probably for the best.
***
Garr, like most Urkans, has never been one to have many expenses. What money he picked up for killing out-of-control monsters or winning the occasional tournament was usually enough to last a long while. Trips into towns to supplement whatever food he'd been able to find or kill on his own. A few medical supplies, not that he had ever needed many. A night under a roof in an actual bed, if he were feeling generous with himself. Sometimes information had a price and he'd spend for that too. And if he bought more than he needed when he went back to Urkan Tapa--
(Please, holy one, it is a gift.)
(A gift for a gift, sister. Feed your children.)
(I...bless you, Guardian.)
(Go with God.)
--well, he could hardly be blamed for that.
The old Guardian has only ever allowed himself one real vice, a personal rule he still follows now. Alcohol is a thing forbidden by neither his native culture nor his own personal vows to God (and wherever She is now, whatever conflicts they've had, those vows still matter); if he drinks less than he could probably afford it is not for any law or vow, only for self-discipline's sake. He has known far too many drunks over the years and doesn't plan to end up like any of them.
Some days that's harder than others.
Now that he's found work and sorted out the more practical business of renting a room in another sector - it's a rougher end of town but he can afford it, and rough neighborhoods he can handle - there's no reason to not allow himself his one vice again. There are bars his new co-workers frequent after the end of a shift; Garr very specifically goes somewhere else.
His standards aren't high. He picks a smaller building, just run-down enough to look like a bar, one without a huge boisterous roar of crowded drunks and music spilling out into the streets. The bartender isn't quite jaded enough to avoid a double-take, but Garr pointedly slaps the first several (large) drinks' worth of money in front of him and says "Tell me you have furniture that can hold up under four hundred pounds and I'll stay out of your way." A couple of the patrons are almost as big or as bulky as he is, so the odds of that look promising, and he's not disappointed.
After that, he and the bartender get along just fine.