the same old question
Maria explains some of the modern world to Martel.
* @Maria got here first, therefore she has taken control of the jukebox. REGGAETON. ALL THE TIME. Oye Mi Canto!
* Martel has the most bemused expression in the world. "What in the name of any god is that racket?"
<@Maria> "Reggaeton! I'll change it to something more palatable, promise." ....she tries to figure out what /is/ more palatable. Although to be honest, Reggaeton is about as culture-shock as it gets, isn't it?
"Palatable." He is not convinced, Maria. But he's at least coming into the room, despite the CULTURE SHOCK.
<@Maria> "It could be /so much worse/, Martel. Really." ...maybe.
"You terrify me," he informs her, insincerely, and goes to get himself water. Yes, just water.
<@Maria> "Then all is as it should be." >:3!! "Did you get any good answers in the Nexus earlier?"
"I don't know about 'good'. I had a few interesting conversations, here and there."
<@Maria> "Well, that's something! I met this kid who wanted to be taken to the ocean and when I /brought/ him there he promptly jumped right in and splashed around. Very weird."
"...a little, yes."
<@Maria> "But hey, comparatively speaking? Could be way worse." She grins a bit. "I love it here, there's something every day."
"It can /always/ be worse." ...You're such an optimist, dude.
<@Maria> "Cheerful!" Maria rolls her eyes at him, and then goes to sit on the bar. "You should make inspirational kitten posters."
"Pardon?" Hey, culture shock. How you doin? We should get better acquainted.
* Martel taps his fingertips against the bar. "Ignoring your detour into madness, I don't suppose you'd mind making yourself useful for a moment."
<@Maria> "'Detour'?" She balances her palms on the bar top and leans back against them. "I'll do my best!"
"I was being generous." Terribly dry. Anyway. "I've never heard of the Unseelie, but earlier I apparently met their Queen. Do you know anything about them?"
<@Maria> "Did you? Goddamn." A few months ago she would've been a lot more aghast at this! The Nexus jades us all. :( "Anyway, yeah, um--the Unseelie are like, the slightly less ethical court of fae. Fairies. The seelie court is the one that's...less inclined to kidnap children so they can play forever in fairyland or whatever. But everybody's different, I'm sure she was nice." ...yes.
"She was a queen." Shrug. ...because royalty is something most people just kind of shrug off.
<@Maria> "Yeah, remind me to tell you about RuPaul sometime." ...why, Maria. "Anyway, what was she like?"
"Subdued. Her husband died."
* @Maria gets really quiet, as she tends to in these situations. "Oh."
"It seemed to be a complicated thing. I didn't pry too deeply."
* KendraShaw staggers in from the entranceway, bleary-eyed and attempting to fight a hangover with more potential causes of a hangover - a nice bottle of ambrosia, all greenish and half-empty, stuck in her hand points to how intently she's been working on that - and finds herself a chair until the room stops spinning. She looks like this: http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/69505948/14510158 only less concerned for her health.
* KendraShaw has had a rough .... time.
<@Maria> "It always is--oh, hi." That lady does not look well, does she. Maria raises her eyebrows and waves.
* Martel considers the usefulness of pouring cold water on the wretch.
"H'lo," she says, cautiously. Most people, when she walks into a room, even if it's a bar, do not generally greet her first. Something about the look on her face seems to scare some people. (Gee, the typist *wonders*.) "... I think I recognize you, maybe. Maria, wasn't it?" She blinks and struggles to pull herself (for once) out of the funk she's sunken into.
* Martel tends not to be what you'd call easily intimidated. Easily annoyed, now, that's another story.
<@Maria> "Yeah!" She totally is the wrong Maria, the typist is pretty sure, but they look the same. COMMENCE: fussing. "You look like you had a hell of a night, you want something to eat? Or--mm, coffee?"
* @Maria is also about five months pregnant by now, underneath her little pale red sundress. And yet. Hanging out in a bar.
* custardpringle is now known as Kowalski
* KendraShaw is not in any condition to tell the difference, frankly, and also hasn't been in here often enough to register they're not the same regardless of her continued attempt at drowning her illegitimate existence in a drug-induced torpor. "Guess I could go for some food, sure." She gives Maria a careful, uncertain look, but doesn't press too close on whatever she's thinking, not yet.
<@Maria> "Awesome. Martel, want anything to eat?" Her tone implies she's going to make him something anyway.
* Kowalski pokes his head in. He looks a bit sniffly and miserable, but in the most macho way imaginable, and don't you dare tell him otherwise. ". . . this isn't the supply closet." Give the man a prize.
<@Maria> "No it is not! It is obviously far superior. You look tired." ...tired. Yes. She changes the music (to The Kills) and goes to the kitchenette.
* KendraShaw doesn't need help snapping out of her funk anymore, if the audible click of a gun being slid from its side holster and pointed at Kowalski's face is any indication. Granted, she's still a bit hazy, so her hand wobbles when she draws a bead on him. "Stay back," she says, though she's not entirely sure to whom she's saying it, at this point.
"No, thank you, Maria--/well/."
* Martel is just gonna go step in, here. "I'm not entirely sure what that is, but I suggest you put it down."
<@Maria> "....uh. That. Could you not, please?" This is to Kendra. "It's not gonna work in here anyway. ...learned that firsthand." >_>
* Kowalski puts his hands up, slowly, keeping an eye on that wobble in Kendra's hand in case he gets a chance to go for his own sidearm-- which clearly shows under his jacket when he raises his arms. "I miss something?"
"... this place's got the field up inside too, then?" She cants her head slightly to the right. "Too bad, I'd kind of enjoy a little bar fight now and then." She says it like she imagines this 'fight' being her fists and Kowalski's unfortunate face. She ... slowly ... very slowly ... lowers the gun. "Just wanted to make sure me and the toaster were on good terms before I turned my back on it again."
* @Maria sneaks a look over at Martel. She is going to have to explain guns to him pretty soon, she thinks. Like, ASAP. "'Toaster?' Ray, do you know her?"
* Martel is irritated, and not only because he doesn't know what half the things these people just said mean. "If you have to hit something, we can find somewhere unprotected, but he looks a little delicate and Maria seems to like him. Play nicely."
* Kowalski lowers his hands-- and keeps one on the butt of his gun, right now, just in case. "Never met her-- I am not /delicate,/ what the fuck, and I'm not a food processor either. What's with everyone today? Can't a guy get a box of paper clips in peace?"
* Martel is bigger than Ray and 75% ego, his typist apologizes profusely.
* @Maria huffs. "No one is hitting, shooting, or maiming the other; if you can't get along with someone, go to a different corner of the room." So says the tiniest and youngest person present. Bossily. "I'm making you all something to eat. Put the goddamn gun away, they're useless here." >:E!!!
* Martel is the biggest :] ...this means very little, Maria could probably pwn him.
* KendraShaw is possibly about the same height as Kowalski and made of about ten times as many nerves of steel and ceramic - see, because she's strong, but she als cracks easily, it's a joke ... oh, forget it. "Funny, because I've seen your face plenty of times before. Who the frak are you pretending to be now, Leoben?"
* Kowalski groans and scrubs a hand down his face. "Aw, this shit again? The guy's been dead how long now, you'd think people'd notice eventually."
"...how much has this wench had to drink, precisely."
<@Maria> "I know Ray. He's not lying." Sandwiches are occurring. Right now. "Also, I don't think she's a wench. Don't wenches work in bars? She's just tired."
"Tired." Martel snorts, and goes to reclaim his glass of water. Whatever, you people are crazy.
* Kowalski is going to edge over this way and get a beer. With Kendra's permission.
* @Maria is a tiny bit fretty about all this, conflict makes her extra-weird lately. (Also it's incredibly easy to make her cry, but she's nowhere near that, currently.)
* KendraShaw does, however, hoslter her sidearm. Perhaps a bit too pointedly polite about doing so, but she's feeling punchy. "Cylons have a way of - I am not a wench, thanks, I'm an officer in the Colonial Fleet -" or, she was, until she died, or tried to die, anyway - see why she's drinking? - "of coming back, and they like getting close." She looks at Maria.
"I said that about a toaster once. Got a front-row seat at the grand opera of the end of the human race for my trouble. I wouldn't trust a toaster if my life depended on it."
* KendraShaw is staring right at Kowalski as she says it, too.
* Martel would like to know what the fuck it is with this bar and people who were on the wrong end of an 'end of the world as we know it'. His conscience doesn't need any more kicking, thank you.
<@Maria> "I've known Ray for a while, though, and he feels the same as always." ...that's more witchy stuff, no one be alarmed. "Anyway there's not going to be any opera here today because I think it would give you a headache, so have a sandwich." Here, Kendra, a tinygirl is attempting to foist a plate on you.
* Kowalski glares back, rather unhappily. "Do I /look/ like I got a plug coming out my ass?" . . . Ray, does it even /occur/ to you to think before you phrase things.
"Charming as you are, I'll pass on contemplating your sexual deviances. Do you both /mind/? The little witch and I were having a conversation."
* Kowalski flails-- "I am not a /deviant,/either--" gives up, and will just sulk peacefully over here now, tyvm.
* Martel snorts, but manages to keep any further comments about what Ray is and is not to himself.
* KendraShaw ... has a plate. She doesn't even remember grabbing the plate with her hand, what the hell. (At least it's not more ambrosia. At least it's not a gun. At least this, if she puts it in her mouth, can't blow a hole in her skull.) "He feels the same as always?" She gives Maria a skeptical, very skeptical look - interrupted for a moment by Kowalski's *charming* objection. "... didn't realize toasters had a sense of humor."
* @Maria brings Ray a sandwich, too. "As Martel says, I am a little witch. Don't try to hurt Ray, please, he's a good guy." Let's take a moment to imagine this girl protecting...anything bigger than a kitten. (And yet, more than she seems. And at least she's loyal!)
* Kowalski makes a dismissive gesture-- ooh, a sandwich. "Aw, thanks." Maria gets a one-armed hug from the arm not busy with the sandwich :3
* KendraShaw shakes her head, looking at each of them in turn, and puts her hand to her head, wincing at the touch. Her face scrunches up before she shakes her head to clear it, just a little more. "Frak," she half-whispers. "I'm going to get some air." She fixes Kowalski with a look. "But I'll be back to deal with this."
* KendraShaw goes, half-staggering, and gone.
"Joy of joys," Martel intones.
* @Maria returns this! And goes to take her seat by the bar (and presumably Martel?) again. "She seemed really sick. I should make her something better."
* Kowalski glowers at her, briefly. "Lookin' forward to it." No he isn't.
* Martel stretches his legs (yes, by Maria) and grimaces. "She seemed out of her mind."
<@Maria> "What is this 'toaster' thing?"
* Kowalski takes his beer and sandwich and flumps into an armchair. "Nah, she mistook me for a guy who used to be around the Nexus. He's been dead a while, though, I figured people'd get the picture by now."
<@Maria> "I'm sorry you have to deal with that." Talk about messed-up doppleganger situations.
"/I've/ been dead a while," Martel points out, relatively reasonably. "The nexus changes the rules." A beat. "Even so, I stand by my assessment." Of her being insane.
"Yeah, well, it's still confusing." Ray shrugs and takes a gulp of beer. "So! How're you both?"
* @Maria looks over at Martel and hides her smile behind her hand. "I'm okay. Kind of a basket case lately, but I'm endeavoring to not be one of those crazy pregnant chicks."
"Adjusting." He sounds so well-adjusted, doesn't he? (No.)
* Kowalski toasts Maria with his beer bottle, solemnly. "You're the least crazy chick I know." This is actually true.
<@Maria> ..................let's just all take a moment to observe that the girl who got knocked up by a guy who was technically hunting her is LEAST CRAZY. She's incredibly proud of this. "Aww! Really? Awesome."
* @Maria will attempt to use this as an excuse to get away with God knows what now, btw.
"Really." Ray stretches out a bit-- Monday is over, hooray-- and tries to remember if he's supposed to be meeting Fraser for dinner tonight. "Frannie, my sister, she's scarier than you and she's /not/ pregnant." . . . watch him try to imagine this now. D: D: D:
<@Maria> "See, I'm not scary!" .... Frannie has probably never turned into a freaky rose monster thing or intentionally induced an aneurysm in a BSD, Maria. "She should get married and have a million babies, obviously." :3
"You're unutterably terrifying." Martel does not sound terrified, fyi. "Will you pass me that water jug?" ...at /all/.
* @Maria hands it over. "It's heavy," she informs him, poutily, although it does not appear to faze her at all so maybe she's just complaining.
* Martel taps her lower lip. "Don't pout." Thank you, Mr Personal Space Is For Other People.
"Oh God." Ray is /so/ considering this now. And he's pretty sure Frannie's /trying/ to induce an aneurism in Fraser, if she hasn't already. "She's got too many hormones already." Of course he thinks this, he's her brother. Kind of.
* @Maria crinkles her nose at Martel and sort of bares her teeth on her way back to sitting comfortably. "She and I could go baby clothes shopping together." Now she's just being a brat, Ray.
* KendraShaw chooses this indescribably domestic conversation as her re-entry position, which is to say she's comfortably ignoring the discussion of babies in favor of finally taking a bite of her sandwich as she sits back down and moves so she can face everyone. This is her way of saying hello. Sort of.
* Martel laughs quietly.
* Kowalski is going to cry-- no he isn't. But he looks a bit like he wants to. Aaand here's Kendra again, wonderful. "Between you two you probably already know every store in the city."
<@Maria> "It's true. I also know the ones that don't exist yet. Because I'm psychic." >:3!! ...moving on. She waves at Kendra again. "Feel any better?"
* Martel is briefly distracted by various connected ideas. He'll just be quiet, a moment, here. With his water.
"A bit," she says. "I'd feel better knowing there weren't any toasters breathing my air." ... she's not letting this go, Kowalski, better get used to it until you can find proof to the contrary.
* @Maria considers taking the toaster out of the wall and putting it outside.
* Kowalski would support this.
* Martel doesn't even know what a toaster is, and he's coming up with some goddamn weird visuals, guys.
* KendraShaw does not exist to translate her space slang for you, Martel. >:E
* Martel is pretty sure she exists to be fucking bizarre.
<@Maria> "Toasters don't breathe," she informs Kendra, matter-of-factly, "Due to being made of metal. Are you still drinking?"
* KendraShaw rolls her eyes. "Cylons, then. They used to look like walking chrome toasters, now they look just like any normal person, except they aren't. THey're machines that - no matter how good they are at saying otherwise - wouldn't mind seeing the whole of humanity all dead and gone." She glances at her bottle. "What does it matter if I am?"
"And here I was just going to enslave it." ...that's not FUNNY, Martel.
<@Maria> "Drink water, and then coffee, or eventually when you sober up you're gonna feel even worse." She ignores all this machine stuff in favor of fussing, although Martel makes her pause mid-step toward the glass cupboard.
* Martel drinks his water. Peaceably.
"Well, uh, I'm not a machine," Ray offers. "I bleed and everything."
* KendraShaw stares sullenly at her sandwich. "I'm going to feel worse anyway, why sugarcoat it -" she pauses, mid-sentence, to turn this glare on Martel - "that's not particularly funny."
"I wasn't kidding," he says, dryly.
* KendraShaw looks at Kowalski. "So do Cylons," she says. "Nice and red."
* KendraShaw ... stares at Martel, clearly uncertain of how to handle a remark like that. Her worldview doesn't have room for would-be world dictators, sadly; it's too narrow for it, these days, though it's doubtful even before the Cylons whether she'd have known how to take that, either.
* Martel smiles. Friendly like.
* Kowalski looks at Kendra. "So what's the difference?"
* @Maria edges over to Kendra, while she's staring at Martel. :E Bottle. Give.
* Martel drinks his water and endeavors to look harmless, which is difficult when you're a tall, muscular fellow with a large sword (no, an /actual broadsword/, you filthy cretins).
* KendraShaw takes a bite of her sandwich. "Cylons nuked the Twelve Colonies and wiped out several billion people within 24 hours, and we didn't, that's what," she says. No. Bottle hers. >:E
* @Maria will wait. Patiently.
* KendraShaw isn't going to give you the godsdamn bottle, Maria.
* @Maria will totally steal it, though, if she gets a chance.
* KendraShaw puts it in her lap. Where she can hold it. Out of Maria's reach. You cannot has, little witch.
* Kowalski watches this interestedly. This is worth waiting on an answer to his question.
<@Maria> If Kendra lets go long enough with her hands, and really thinks Maria will not reach into her lap, though, she is sadly mistaken. Uh. Hi. "So? What's the difference?"
"Years of mutual prejudice?" Martel hazards a guess, sardonic.
* Grif teleports in.
* KendraShaw does, in fact, not believe that Maria will reach into her lap, and if she does, will very strenuously object to the removal of her alcohol - *hers*! not Maria's! - from her person. "They're *machines*, no matter how good they are at faking like they're real people," she says. "They don't have hearts, they don't have souls. And they're all killers." She's not willing to be persuaded on this. At all.
"And I'm not one." Ray crosses his arms. "So deal."
* KendraShaw stares at him. "I don't know if I can believe you," she says. Which is ... something, at least.
* @Maria waves at Grif! "Hi! Do that hologram thing again, please?"
"Well," Grif says as he takes off his helmet. "Looks like I picked a happy fun time to drop by."
* KendraShaw blinks.
"By God, tell me you have something to discuss that isn't toast."
* KendraShaw spends a solid thirty seconds gaping like a fish at Grif ... even after he removes his helmet.
* Kowalski waves to Grif, absently.
* @Maria makes her attempt!! HELLO KENDRA
o_O "Uh. The globe again, or should I just pick something at random?" He approaches the bar, waving friendly-like, and reaches for some beer.
* KendraShaw is still not sufficiently distracted to fail her awareness roll, and she lunges half off her seat to grab for her ambrosia bottle before Maria can escape.
* Martel is interested, now. "What sort of things can you bring images of? Is it limited?"
* @Maria squeals and attempts to dart across the room, arms tight around the bottle. "NO. BAD DRUNK GIRL." >:|!!
"She isn't a pet, Maria," he says, absent-mindedly.
* Grif shrugs. "Whatever I can get an image loaded into my armor's computer for. Really huge stuff, probably not so much, but detail's generally not a problem."
* KendraShaw is yanked off her seat by this, and stares quite bewilderedly at Maria's ... phrasing. "I'm not frakking drunk," she says. "I'm hungover. If I were drunk, I wouldn't be hungover. That's not your ambrosia bottle, Maria. Give it back."
* Martel looks ... as though he is coming up with a PLAN. "How does one load the images?" He doesn't really understand what 'load' means in this context, but he can make educated guesses that more or less work.
<@Maria> "Yeah, well, I'm running things around here for now, and you are /trying/ to self-medicate your hangover or your...whatever." There would be charming gestures here if not for her tight hold on the bottle. "So you're cut off. You came in here looking really miserable and sick and it's not okay to /let someone/ do that, so just deal with it." B| ... and then. Sort of carefully: "I'll make you a hangover thing if you want?"
"I've got a connection to the computers back at the base back home, which has links to the galactic chatternet. That... probably doesn't mean anything to do, but basically I have my gear talk to others' gear, and they send me stuff."
"Not a thing," Martel admits -- because it is PATENTLY OBVIOUS.
"You're just a kid," she says, baffled *and* irritated. "You don't know what the frak you're talking about. Give me that ambrosia back first."
* Kowalski is listening to this curiously. "So you're, like, a stormtrooper, right?"
<@Maria> "I'm nineteen!" She is now also baffled. Kid? What?
* Grif looks over at Ray, and makes a so-so gesture. "Nnnnot as such. I suppose the original SPARTANs could've been considered something like that, though the name was never used. Generally, we're just classed as 'super-soldiers.'"
"Super-soldiers." Martel raises an eyebrow.
* KendraShaw is ... probably not much older than Maria, honestly, but let's not analyze that too closely. "You're still not old enough to tell me that I'm ruining my life," she says. "You don't even *know* my life." She's handling this remarkably calm. "I just want the ambrosia bottle, for the gods' sake."
* @Maria is pretty sure she didn't say that. Did she? "'Ruining your life'?" She regards Kendra, puzzled. "Where'd /that/ come from?"
* KendraShaw gives Maria a level look. "You're the one going on about how it's not right to let someone drink themselves out of a hangover." Watch her skirt the issue of how well she's treating herself SO WELL, yes.
"Would it help to have an older, more booze-experienced voice say the same thing?"
"Because it isn't," Martel interjects, irritably. "If you want to drink so badly, you don't need an audience. Take it and go or bite your tongue for a moment and drink the damn water."
* Martel ...probably wasn't what Grif had in mind, but he did spend a lot of his life with a man who will die screaming when his liver gives out.
* Grif was thinking of himself, actually.
* Martel is way more of a douche than Grif.
* @Maria has backup in the form of really tall dudes. \o/
"If I can get the ambrosia back, I'll get out of your hair," she says, firmly, which really solves nothing, but she is not really in the business of solving her problems the way other people might think would actually *help*.
* Martel mutters a few choice words in Styric. They are not pretty words.
<@Maria> "You can get it back when you leave." Witness a tinygirl scrambling up onto the bar to place the ambrosia in the light fixture. Awesome. Dear Maria: please don't fall, you'll die. Or at least get hurt, probably. "For now, I can totally make you a hangover cure."
"Or you could drink the water, get yourself less thoroughly hosed, and then maybe get on drinking yourself back into oblivion. It helps to pace that shit."
* Kowalski is . . . here. Yes. Because he worries about Maria. But he might go once this is resolved, because it's already been Monday all day and he doesn't need more of this.
"Your liver will thank you if you take his advice."
*their. whatever.
* KendraShaw closes her eyes. "Right. I don't need the lecture. I'll be going, then. THanks for all your wonderful advice, I'll keep it in mind for when I need it." She's not really fooling ANYONE, she needs it now, but she's really not good at admitting this to anyone.
* KendraShaw starts for the door, and will go unless someone actually tries to stop her.
* Martel isn't gonna.
"So, like, now sounds like a good time for that." He will, in fact, stand himself right in the way.
* @Maria is pretty sure Grif is the best door-block...ever.
* KendraShaw stares up at Grif, and at least one neuron firing in her brain is considering that only in the Nexus would she be door-blocked by a seven-foot-tall super-soldier in bright orange armor. The rest of 'em are just kind of annoyed. "I don't really need babysitting, thanks," she says, drily.
"You're not really convincing anyone, you realize."
"Oh, I dunno 'bout that. From what I've seen so far, babyish is as babyish does. Sit the fuck down and get your shit straight."
* Martel likes Grif.
* KendraShaw only restrains herself from punching Grif in the solar plexus by a combination of self-preservation, knowledge of the AVF, and the critical thinking skills necessary for her to realize that armor would break her hand if she tried.
* KendraShaw is not actually that visibly upset, but this is basically what goes through her mind for a split second.
* Kowalski groans and gets up. "I, look, I'm sorry, it's been a really goddamn long day. Evening." And he will, for once in his life because the typist is sleepy, quietly wander out.
"My shit doesn't need straightening, not by total strangers who I barely frakking know."
<@Maria> "'Bye, Ray." Now she's worrying about him too. D: Maria climbs down from the bar, carefully. "We can talk about other stuff, but this isn't like other places in the Nexus, it's not just do whatever you want. Besides, better here than that big bar where everone's noisy, right?"
* Grif is basically using the facial expression of someone long used to being the stern older brother. "Well, whoever your friends back home are, if you've got any, they don't seem to be doing all that good a job of it."
"They've all got better things to do than worry about a dead girl, thanks."
* KendraShaw looks over her shoulder at Maria. "I sleep in one of the siderooms there. I just use a PINpoint to get in and out when I'm feeling antisocial." Which is most of the time.
* Martel softens very slightly, but grudgingly and he masks it well with more irritation. Shut up, he's not bonding with ANYONE over being dead.
* KendraShaw blinks. "Which should tell me something, if I've forgotten I had that with me." She shakes her head and pulls the cell phone-shaped device from her pocket. "Thanks for all your help, I'll remember you to my bottle tonight." And she presses the big button. Bye!
"!!" B| "Shit. Okay, she got us there."
<@Maria> "It's okay, there's always next time." ... run, Kendra.
"A race against time between good sense and liver failure."
* @Maria glances up at the light fixture, now containing one slowly-being-heated bottle of ambrosia. "Most bars have cut-offs; I didn't think it was such a huge deal. I should probably get that, huh."
"Possibly."
* @Maria sets about climbing back up there.
* Martel has a brief look of consternation, and he gets up to just...you know, stand there in case she needs catching.
* @Maria retrieves the bottle. "It's hot. I don't think it's going to be real drinkable anymore." Although who knows! Maybe it's EXTRA DELICIOUS this way. She manages to retrieve the ambrosia and climb off the bar without toppling over, miraculously.
* Martel does sort of reach out a couple times like 'oh god pregnant girl don't fall'.
"I've known some pretty pig-headed people in my time, but she seemed pretty determined to get an early start on outdoin' them all." He walks back over to the bar. "Why she came to a bar with other people's a bit of a puzzle, unless she was a surprise drop-in."
* @Maria thinks it's cute when Martel does this :3 ...yay. She settles down on a sofa, thank the Lord. "Maybe other people don't say anything? I don't know. It's not a huge deal but the way she got mad kind of made me worry more."
* Martel is not cute :| "Drunks don't take it well when you point out their failings." He and Krager never really /liked/ each other.
* @Maria raises her eyebrows. "Do you do that a lot?"
* Martel considers the question. "It was occasionally necessary." 'Necessary'.
* Grif shrugs and has a seat, finally able to open that beer he'd gotten when he first arrived.
<@Maria> "Necessary /how/?" She is skeptical of this, Martel.
"I had to pass the time somehow in the off weeks."
* @Maria rolls her eyes and laughs. "So you wanted to, more like!"
"I wasn't wrong," he says, mildly. "If Sparhawk's not careful, the drink'll kill Krager before he gets anywhere near him."
* Martel ...says this as though either way, Krager-death is the hoped for outcome.
<@Maria> "...wow, uh. What did this Krager guy do?" Besides have an unfortunate name.
"Aside from drink? It's a long story, little witch."
<@Maria> "It always is." She goes back to perch on top of the bar now, legs crossed neatly. It'd be ladylike if she were...you know, in a damn chair.
"I've noticed that myself."
"Everybody's got their long stories." Including himself, which he's fairly aware of.
* @Maria got here first, therefore she has taken control of the jukebox. REGGAETON. ALL THE TIME. Oye Mi Canto!
* Martel has the most bemused expression in the world. "What in the name of any god is that racket?"
<@Maria> "Reggaeton! I'll change it to something more palatable, promise." ....she tries to figure out what /is/ more palatable. Although to be honest, Reggaeton is about as culture-shock as it gets, isn't it?
"Palatable." He is not convinced, Maria. But he's at least coming into the room, despite the CULTURE SHOCK.
<@Maria> "It could be /so much worse/, Martel. Really." ...maybe.
"You terrify me," he informs her, insincerely, and goes to get himself water. Yes, just water.
<@Maria> "Then all is as it should be." >:3!! "Did you get any good answers in the Nexus earlier?"
"I don't know about 'good'. I had a few interesting conversations, here and there."
<@Maria> "Well, that's something! I met this kid who wanted to be taken to the ocean and when I /brought/ him there he promptly jumped right in and splashed around. Very weird."
"...a little, yes."
<@Maria> "But hey, comparatively speaking? Could be way worse." She grins a bit. "I love it here, there's something every day."
"It can /always/ be worse." ...You're such an optimist, dude.
<@Maria> "Cheerful!" Maria rolls her eyes at him, and then goes to sit on the bar. "You should make inspirational kitten posters."
"Pardon?" Hey, culture shock. How you doin? We should get better acquainted.
* Martel taps his fingertips against the bar. "Ignoring your detour into madness, I don't suppose you'd mind making yourself useful for a moment."
<@Maria> "'Detour'?" She balances her palms on the bar top and leans back against them. "I'll do my best!"
"I was being generous." Terribly dry. Anyway. "I've never heard of the Unseelie, but earlier I apparently met their Queen. Do you know anything about them?"
<@Maria> "Did you? Goddamn." A few months ago she would've been a lot more aghast at this! The Nexus jades us all. :( "Anyway, yeah, um--the Unseelie are like, the slightly less ethical court of fae. Fairies. The seelie court is the one that's...less inclined to kidnap children so they can play forever in fairyland or whatever. But everybody's different, I'm sure she was nice." ...yes.
"She was a queen." Shrug. ...because royalty is something most people just kind of shrug off.
<@Maria> "Yeah, remind me to tell you about RuPaul sometime." ...why, Maria. "Anyway, what was she like?"
"Subdued. Her husband died."
* @Maria gets really quiet, as she tends to in these situations. "Oh."
"It seemed to be a complicated thing. I didn't pry too deeply."
* KendraShaw staggers in from the entranceway, bleary-eyed and attempting to fight a hangover with more potential causes of a hangover - a nice bottle of ambrosia, all greenish and half-empty, stuck in her hand points to how intently she's been working on that - and finds herself a chair until the room stops spinning. She looks like this: http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/69505948/14510158 only less concerned for her health.
* KendraShaw has had a rough .... time.
<@Maria> "It always is--oh, hi." That lady does not look well, does she. Maria raises her eyebrows and waves.
* Martel considers the usefulness of pouring cold water on the wretch.
"H'lo," she says, cautiously. Most people, when she walks into a room, even if it's a bar, do not generally greet her first. Something about the look on her face seems to scare some people. (Gee, the typist *wonders*.) "... I think I recognize you, maybe. Maria, wasn't it?" She blinks and struggles to pull herself (for once) out of the funk she's sunken into.
* Martel tends not to be what you'd call easily intimidated. Easily annoyed, now, that's another story.
<@Maria> "Yeah!" She totally is the wrong Maria, the typist is pretty sure, but they look the same. COMMENCE: fussing. "You look like you had a hell of a night, you want something to eat? Or--mm, coffee?"
* @Maria is also about five months pregnant by now, underneath her little pale red sundress. And yet. Hanging out in a bar.
* custardpringle is now known as Kowalski
* KendraShaw is not in any condition to tell the difference, frankly, and also hasn't been in here often enough to register they're not the same regardless of her continued attempt at drowning her illegitimate existence in a drug-induced torpor. "Guess I could go for some food, sure." She gives Maria a careful, uncertain look, but doesn't press too close on whatever she's thinking, not yet.
<@Maria> "Awesome. Martel, want anything to eat?" Her tone implies she's going to make him something anyway.
* Kowalski pokes his head in. He looks a bit sniffly and miserable, but in the most macho way imaginable, and don't you dare tell him otherwise. ". . . this isn't the supply closet." Give the man a prize.
<@Maria> "No it is not! It is obviously far superior. You look tired." ...tired. Yes. She changes the music (to The Kills) and goes to the kitchenette.
* KendraShaw doesn't need help snapping out of her funk anymore, if the audible click of a gun being slid from its side holster and pointed at Kowalski's face is any indication. Granted, she's still a bit hazy, so her hand wobbles when she draws a bead on him. "Stay back," she says, though she's not entirely sure to whom she's saying it, at this point.
"No, thank you, Maria--/well/."
* Martel is just gonna go step in, here. "I'm not entirely sure what that is, but I suggest you put it down."
<@Maria> "....uh. That. Could you not, please?" This is to Kendra. "It's not gonna work in here anyway. ...learned that firsthand." >_>
* Kowalski puts his hands up, slowly, keeping an eye on that wobble in Kendra's hand in case he gets a chance to go for his own sidearm-- which clearly shows under his jacket when he raises his arms. "I miss something?"
"... this place's got the field up inside too, then?" She cants her head slightly to the right. "Too bad, I'd kind of enjoy a little bar fight now and then." She says it like she imagines this 'fight' being her fists and Kowalski's unfortunate face. She ... slowly ... very slowly ... lowers the gun. "Just wanted to make sure me and the toaster were on good terms before I turned my back on it again."
* @Maria sneaks a look over at Martel. She is going to have to explain guns to him pretty soon, she thinks. Like, ASAP. "'Toaster?' Ray, do you know her?"
* Martel is irritated, and not only because he doesn't know what half the things these people just said mean. "If you have to hit something, we can find somewhere unprotected, but he looks a little delicate and Maria seems to like him. Play nicely."
* Kowalski lowers his hands-- and keeps one on the butt of his gun, right now, just in case. "Never met her-- I am not /delicate,/ what the fuck, and I'm not a food processor either. What's with everyone today? Can't a guy get a box of paper clips in peace?"
* Martel is bigger than Ray and 75% ego, his typist apologizes profusely.
* @Maria huffs. "No one is hitting, shooting, or maiming the other; if you can't get along with someone, go to a different corner of the room." So says the tiniest and youngest person present. Bossily. "I'm making you all something to eat. Put the goddamn gun away, they're useless here." >:E!!!
* Martel is the biggest :] ...this means very little, Maria could probably pwn him.
* KendraShaw is possibly about the same height as Kowalski and made of about ten times as many nerves of steel and ceramic - see, because she's strong, but she als cracks easily, it's a joke ... oh, forget it. "Funny, because I've seen your face plenty of times before. Who the frak are you pretending to be now, Leoben?"
* Kowalski groans and scrubs a hand down his face. "Aw, this shit again? The guy's been dead how long now, you'd think people'd notice eventually."
"...how much has this wench had to drink, precisely."
<@Maria> "I know Ray. He's not lying." Sandwiches are occurring. Right now. "Also, I don't think she's a wench. Don't wenches work in bars? She's just tired."
"Tired." Martel snorts, and goes to reclaim his glass of water. Whatever, you people are crazy.
* Kowalski is going to edge over this way and get a beer. With Kendra's permission.
* @Maria is a tiny bit fretty about all this, conflict makes her extra-weird lately. (Also it's incredibly easy to make her cry, but she's nowhere near that, currently.)
* KendraShaw does, however, hoslter her sidearm. Perhaps a bit too pointedly polite about doing so, but she's feeling punchy. "Cylons have a way of - I am not a wench, thanks, I'm an officer in the Colonial Fleet -" or, she was, until she died, or tried to die, anyway - see why she's drinking? - "of coming back, and they like getting close." She looks at Maria.
"I said that about a toaster once. Got a front-row seat at the grand opera of the end of the human race for my trouble. I wouldn't trust a toaster if my life depended on it."
* KendraShaw is staring right at Kowalski as she says it, too.
* Martel would like to know what the fuck it is with this bar and people who were on the wrong end of an 'end of the world as we know it'. His conscience doesn't need any more kicking, thank you.
<@Maria> "I've known Ray for a while, though, and he feels the same as always." ...that's more witchy stuff, no one be alarmed. "Anyway there's not going to be any opera here today because I think it would give you a headache, so have a sandwich." Here, Kendra, a tinygirl is attempting to foist a plate on you.
* Kowalski glares back, rather unhappily. "Do I /look/ like I got a plug coming out my ass?" . . . Ray, does it even /occur/ to you to think before you phrase things.
"Charming as you are, I'll pass on contemplating your sexual deviances. Do you both /mind/? The little witch and I were having a conversation."
* Kowalski flails-- "I am not a /deviant,/either--" gives up, and will just sulk peacefully over here now, tyvm.
* Martel snorts, but manages to keep any further comments about what Ray is and is not to himself.
* KendraShaw ... has a plate. She doesn't even remember grabbing the plate with her hand, what the hell. (At least it's not more ambrosia. At least it's not a gun. At least this, if she puts it in her mouth, can't blow a hole in her skull.) "He feels the same as always?" She gives Maria a skeptical, very skeptical look - interrupted for a moment by Kowalski's *charming* objection. "... didn't realize toasters had a sense of humor."
* @Maria brings Ray a sandwich, too. "As Martel says, I am a little witch. Don't try to hurt Ray, please, he's a good guy." Let's take a moment to imagine this girl protecting...anything bigger than a kitten. (And yet, more than she seems. And at least she's loyal!)
* Kowalski makes a dismissive gesture-- ooh, a sandwich. "Aw, thanks." Maria gets a one-armed hug from the arm not busy with the sandwich :3
* KendraShaw shakes her head, looking at each of them in turn, and puts her hand to her head, wincing at the touch. Her face scrunches up before she shakes her head to clear it, just a little more. "Frak," she half-whispers. "I'm going to get some air." She fixes Kowalski with a look. "But I'll be back to deal with this."
* KendraShaw goes, half-staggering, and gone.
"Joy of joys," Martel intones.
* @Maria returns this! And goes to take her seat by the bar (and presumably Martel?) again. "She seemed really sick. I should make her something better."
* Kowalski glowers at her, briefly. "Lookin' forward to it." No he isn't.
* Martel stretches his legs (yes, by Maria) and grimaces. "She seemed out of her mind."
<@Maria> "What is this 'toaster' thing?"
* Kowalski takes his beer and sandwich and flumps into an armchair. "Nah, she mistook me for a guy who used to be around the Nexus. He's been dead a while, though, I figured people'd get the picture by now."
<@Maria> "I'm sorry you have to deal with that." Talk about messed-up doppleganger situations.
"/I've/ been dead a while," Martel points out, relatively reasonably. "The nexus changes the rules." A beat. "Even so, I stand by my assessment." Of her being insane.
"Yeah, well, it's still confusing." Ray shrugs and takes a gulp of beer. "So! How're you both?"
* @Maria looks over at Martel and hides her smile behind her hand. "I'm okay. Kind of a basket case lately, but I'm endeavoring to not be one of those crazy pregnant chicks."
"Adjusting." He sounds so well-adjusted, doesn't he? (No.)
* Kowalski toasts Maria with his beer bottle, solemnly. "You're the least crazy chick I know." This is actually true.
<@Maria> ..................let's just all take a moment to observe that the girl who got knocked up by a guy who was technically hunting her is LEAST CRAZY. She's incredibly proud of this. "Aww! Really? Awesome."
* @Maria will attempt to use this as an excuse to get away with God knows what now, btw.
"Really." Ray stretches out a bit-- Monday is over, hooray-- and tries to remember if he's supposed to be meeting Fraser for dinner tonight. "Frannie, my sister, she's scarier than you and she's /not/ pregnant." . . . watch him try to imagine this now. D: D: D:
<@Maria> "See, I'm not scary!" .... Frannie has probably never turned into a freaky rose monster thing or intentionally induced an aneurysm in a BSD, Maria. "She should get married and have a million babies, obviously." :3
"You're unutterably terrifying." Martel does not sound terrified, fyi. "Will you pass me that water jug?" ...at /all/.
* @Maria hands it over. "It's heavy," she informs him, poutily, although it does not appear to faze her at all so maybe she's just complaining.
* Martel taps her lower lip. "Don't pout." Thank you, Mr Personal Space Is For Other People.
"Oh God." Ray is /so/ considering this now. And he's pretty sure Frannie's /trying/ to induce an aneurism in Fraser, if she hasn't already. "She's got too many hormones already." Of course he thinks this, he's her brother. Kind of.
* @Maria crinkles her nose at Martel and sort of bares her teeth on her way back to sitting comfortably. "She and I could go baby clothes shopping together." Now she's just being a brat, Ray.
* KendraShaw chooses this indescribably domestic conversation as her re-entry position, which is to say she's comfortably ignoring the discussion of babies in favor of finally taking a bite of her sandwich as she sits back down and moves so she can face everyone. This is her way of saying hello. Sort of.
* Martel laughs quietly.
* Kowalski is going to cry-- no he isn't. But he looks a bit like he wants to. Aaand here's Kendra again, wonderful. "Between you two you probably already know every store in the city."
<@Maria> "It's true. I also know the ones that don't exist yet. Because I'm psychic." >:3!! ...moving on. She waves at Kendra again. "Feel any better?"
* Martel is briefly distracted by various connected ideas. He'll just be quiet, a moment, here. With his water.
"A bit," she says. "I'd feel better knowing there weren't any toasters breathing my air." ... she's not letting this go, Kowalski, better get used to it until you can find proof to the contrary.
* @Maria considers taking the toaster out of the wall and putting it outside.
* Kowalski would support this.
* Martel doesn't even know what a toaster is, and he's coming up with some goddamn weird visuals, guys.
* KendraShaw does not exist to translate her space slang for you, Martel. >:E
* Martel is pretty sure she exists to be fucking bizarre.
<@Maria> "Toasters don't breathe," she informs Kendra, matter-of-factly, "Due to being made of metal. Are you still drinking?"
* KendraShaw rolls her eyes. "Cylons, then. They used to look like walking chrome toasters, now they look just like any normal person, except they aren't. THey're machines that - no matter how good they are at saying otherwise - wouldn't mind seeing the whole of humanity all dead and gone." She glances at her bottle. "What does it matter if I am?"
"And here I was just going to enslave it." ...that's not FUNNY, Martel.
<@Maria> "Drink water, and then coffee, or eventually when you sober up you're gonna feel even worse." She ignores all this machine stuff in favor of fussing, although Martel makes her pause mid-step toward the glass cupboard.
* Martel drinks his water. Peaceably.
"Well, uh, I'm not a machine," Ray offers. "I bleed and everything."
* KendraShaw stares sullenly at her sandwich. "I'm going to feel worse anyway, why sugarcoat it -" she pauses, mid-sentence, to turn this glare on Martel - "that's not particularly funny."
"I wasn't kidding," he says, dryly.
* KendraShaw looks at Kowalski. "So do Cylons," she says. "Nice and red."
* KendraShaw ... stares at Martel, clearly uncertain of how to handle a remark like that. Her worldview doesn't have room for would-be world dictators, sadly; it's too narrow for it, these days, though it's doubtful even before the Cylons whether she'd have known how to take that, either.
* Martel smiles. Friendly like.
* Kowalski looks at Kendra. "So what's the difference?"
* @Maria edges over to Kendra, while she's staring at Martel. :E Bottle. Give.
* Martel drinks his water and endeavors to look harmless, which is difficult when you're a tall, muscular fellow with a large sword (no, an /actual broadsword/, you filthy cretins).
* KendraShaw takes a bite of her sandwich. "Cylons nuked the Twelve Colonies and wiped out several billion people within 24 hours, and we didn't, that's what," she says. No. Bottle hers. >:E
* @Maria will wait. Patiently.
* KendraShaw isn't going to give you the godsdamn bottle, Maria.
* @Maria will totally steal it, though, if she gets a chance.
* KendraShaw puts it in her lap. Where she can hold it. Out of Maria's reach. You cannot has, little witch.
* Kowalski watches this interestedly. This is worth waiting on an answer to his question.
<@Maria> If Kendra lets go long enough with her hands, and really thinks Maria will not reach into her lap, though, she is sadly mistaken. Uh. Hi. "So? What's the difference?"
"Years of mutual prejudice?" Martel hazards a guess, sardonic.
* Grif teleports in.
* KendraShaw does, in fact, not believe that Maria will reach into her lap, and if she does, will very strenuously object to the removal of her alcohol - *hers*! not Maria's! - from her person. "They're *machines*, no matter how good they are at faking like they're real people," she says. "They don't have hearts, they don't have souls. And they're all killers." She's not willing to be persuaded on this. At all.
"And I'm not one." Ray crosses his arms. "So deal."
* KendraShaw stares at him. "I don't know if I can believe you," she says. Which is ... something, at least.
* @Maria waves at Grif! "Hi! Do that hologram thing again, please?"
"Well," Grif says as he takes off his helmet. "Looks like I picked a happy fun time to drop by."
* KendraShaw blinks.
"By God, tell me you have something to discuss that isn't toast."
* KendraShaw spends a solid thirty seconds gaping like a fish at Grif ... even after he removes his helmet.
* Kowalski waves to Grif, absently.
* @Maria makes her attempt!! HELLO KENDRA
o_O "Uh. The globe again, or should I just pick something at random?" He approaches the bar, waving friendly-like, and reaches for some beer.
* KendraShaw is still not sufficiently distracted to fail her awareness roll, and she lunges half off her seat to grab for her ambrosia bottle before Maria can escape.
* Martel is interested, now. "What sort of things can you bring images of? Is it limited?"
* @Maria squeals and attempts to dart across the room, arms tight around the bottle. "NO. BAD DRUNK GIRL." >:|!!
"She isn't a pet, Maria," he says, absent-mindedly.
* Grif shrugs. "Whatever I can get an image loaded into my armor's computer for. Really huge stuff, probably not so much, but detail's generally not a problem."
* KendraShaw is yanked off her seat by this, and stares quite bewilderedly at Maria's ... phrasing. "I'm not frakking drunk," she says. "I'm hungover. If I were drunk, I wouldn't be hungover. That's not your ambrosia bottle, Maria. Give it back."
* Martel looks ... as though he is coming up with a PLAN. "How does one load the images?" He doesn't really understand what 'load' means in this context, but he can make educated guesses that more or less work.
<@Maria> "Yeah, well, I'm running things around here for now, and you are /trying/ to self-medicate your hangover or your...whatever." There would be charming gestures here if not for her tight hold on the bottle. "So you're cut off. You came in here looking really miserable and sick and it's not okay to /let someone/ do that, so just deal with it." B| ... and then. Sort of carefully: "I'll make you a hangover thing if you want?"
"I've got a connection to the computers back at the base back home, which has links to the galactic chatternet. That... probably doesn't mean anything to do, but basically I have my gear talk to others' gear, and they send me stuff."
"Not a thing," Martel admits -- because it is PATENTLY OBVIOUS.
"You're just a kid," she says, baffled *and* irritated. "You don't know what the frak you're talking about. Give me that ambrosia back first."
* Kowalski is listening to this curiously. "So you're, like, a stormtrooper, right?"
<@Maria> "I'm nineteen!" She is now also baffled. Kid? What?
* Grif looks over at Ray, and makes a so-so gesture. "Nnnnot as such. I suppose the original SPARTANs could've been considered something like that, though the name was never used. Generally, we're just classed as 'super-soldiers.'"
"Super-soldiers." Martel raises an eyebrow.
* KendraShaw is ... probably not much older than Maria, honestly, but let's not analyze that too closely. "You're still not old enough to tell me that I'm ruining my life," she says. "You don't even *know* my life." She's handling this remarkably calm. "I just want the ambrosia bottle, for the gods' sake."
* @Maria is pretty sure she didn't say that. Did she? "'Ruining your life'?" She regards Kendra, puzzled. "Where'd /that/ come from?"
* KendraShaw gives Maria a level look. "You're the one going on about how it's not right to let someone drink themselves out of a hangover." Watch her skirt the issue of how well she's treating herself SO WELL, yes.
"Would it help to have an older, more booze-experienced voice say the same thing?"
"Because it isn't," Martel interjects, irritably. "If you want to drink so badly, you don't need an audience. Take it and go or bite your tongue for a moment and drink the damn water."
* Martel ...probably wasn't what Grif had in mind, but he did spend a lot of his life with a man who will die screaming when his liver gives out.
* Grif was thinking of himself, actually.
* Martel is way more of a douche than Grif.
* @Maria has backup in the form of really tall dudes. \o/
"If I can get the ambrosia back, I'll get out of your hair," she says, firmly, which really solves nothing, but she is not really in the business of solving her problems the way other people might think would actually *help*.
* Martel mutters a few choice words in Styric. They are not pretty words.
<@Maria> "You can get it back when you leave." Witness a tinygirl scrambling up onto the bar to place the ambrosia in the light fixture. Awesome. Dear Maria: please don't fall, you'll die. Or at least get hurt, probably. "For now, I can totally make you a hangover cure."
"Or you could drink the water, get yourself less thoroughly hosed, and then maybe get on drinking yourself back into oblivion. It helps to pace that shit."
* Kowalski is . . . here. Yes. Because he worries about Maria. But he might go once this is resolved, because it's already been Monday all day and he doesn't need more of this.
"Your liver will thank you if you take his advice."
*their. whatever.
* KendraShaw closes her eyes. "Right. I don't need the lecture. I'll be going, then. THanks for all your wonderful advice, I'll keep it in mind for when I need it." She's not really fooling ANYONE, she needs it now, but she's really not good at admitting this to anyone.
* KendraShaw starts for the door, and will go unless someone actually tries to stop her.
* Martel isn't gonna.
"So, like, now sounds like a good time for that." He will, in fact, stand himself right in the way.
* @Maria is pretty sure Grif is the best door-block...ever.
* KendraShaw stares up at Grif, and at least one neuron firing in her brain is considering that only in the Nexus would she be door-blocked by a seven-foot-tall super-soldier in bright orange armor. The rest of 'em are just kind of annoyed. "I don't really need babysitting, thanks," she says, drily.
"You're not really convincing anyone, you realize."
"Oh, I dunno 'bout that. From what I've seen so far, babyish is as babyish does. Sit the fuck down and get your shit straight."
* Martel likes Grif.
* KendraShaw only restrains herself from punching Grif in the solar plexus by a combination of self-preservation, knowledge of the AVF, and the critical thinking skills necessary for her to realize that armor would break her hand if she tried.
* KendraShaw is not actually that visibly upset, but this is basically what goes through her mind for a split second.
* Kowalski groans and gets up. "I, look, I'm sorry, it's been a really goddamn long day. Evening." And he will, for once in his life because the typist is sleepy, quietly wander out.
"My shit doesn't need straightening, not by total strangers who I barely frakking know."
<@Maria> "'Bye, Ray." Now she's worrying about him too. D: Maria climbs down from the bar, carefully. "We can talk about other stuff, but this isn't like other places in the Nexus, it's not just do whatever you want. Besides, better here than that big bar where everone's noisy, right?"
* Grif is basically using the facial expression of someone long used to being the stern older brother. "Well, whoever your friends back home are, if you've got any, they don't seem to be doing all that good a job of it."
"They've all got better things to do than worry about a dead girl, thanks."
* KendraShaw looks over her shoulder at Maria. "I sleep in one of the siderooms there. I just use a PINpoint to get in and out when I'm feeling antisocial." Which is most of the time.
* Martel softens very slightly, but grudgingly and he masks it well with more irritation. Shut up, he's not bonding with ANYONE over being dead.
* KendraShaw blinks. "Which should tell me something, if I've forgotten I had that with me." She shakes her head and pulls the cell phone-shaped device from her pocket. "Thanks for all your help, I'll remember you to my bottle tonight." And she presses the big button. Bye!
"!!" B| "Shit. Okay, she got us there."
<@Maria> "It's okay, there's always next time." ... run, Kendra.
"A race against time between good sense and liver failure."
* @Maria glances up at the light fixture, now containing one slowly-being-heated bottle of ambrosia. "Most bars have cut-offs; I didn't think it was such a huge deal. I should probably get that, huh."
"Possibly."
* @Maria sets about climbing back up there.
* Martel has a brief look of consternation, and he gets up to just...you know, stand there in case she needs catching.
* @Maria retrieves the bottle. "It's hot. I don't think it's going to be real drinkable anymore." Although who knows! Maybe it's EXTRA DELICIOUS this way. She manages to retrieve the ambrosia and climb off the bar without toppling over, miraculously.
* Martel does sort of reach out a couple times like 'oh god pregnant girl don't fall'.
"I've known some pretty pig-headed people in my time, but she seemed pretty determined to get an early start on outdoin' them all." He walks back over to the bar. "Why she came to a bar with other people's a bit of a puzzle, unless she was a surprise drop-in."
* @Maria thinks it's cute when Martel does this :3 ...yay. She settles down on a sofa, thank the Lord. "Maybe other people don't say anything? I don't know. It's not a huge deal but the way she got mad kind of made me worry more."
* Martel is not cute :| "Drunks don't take it well when you point out their failings." He and Krager never really /liked/ each other.
* @Maria raises her eyebrows. "Do you do that a lot?"
* Martel considers the question. "It was occasionally necessary." 'Necessary'.
* Grif shrugs and has a seat, finally able to open that beer he'd gotten when he first arrived.
<@Maria> "Necessary /how/?" She is skeptical of this, Martel.
"I had to pass the time somehow in the off weeks."
* @Maria rolls her eyes and laughs. "So you wanted to, more like!"
"I wasn't wrong," he says, mildly. "If Sparhawk's not careful, the drink'll kill Krager before he gets anywhere near him."
* Martel ...says this as though either way, Krager-death is the hoped for outcome.
<@Maria> "...wow, uh. What did this Krager guy do?" Besides have an unfortunate name.
"Aside from drink? It's a long story, little witch."
<@Maria> "It always is." She goes back to perch on top of the bar now, legs crossed neatly. It'd be ladylike if she were...you know, in a damn chair.
"I've noticed that myself."
"Everybody's got their long stories." Including himself, which he's fairly aware of.