Twisted stars beneath my feet, I cruise the crowd

[designed2kill]

[[Feel free to treat Luka's post as a party thread, even if you were not invited by her.  Additionally, feel free to threadhop with each other or all pile into one thread.  I'm cool with anything.]]

It's 5:45 pm on Saturday, and Luka has just arrived at the Athena restaurant in Greektown. She's invited J and some of her other friends out to

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[aint_nosurprise]

Casey has walked up to the bar and ordered a scotch for himself. He's bleeding from a cut on his arm, and he doesn't really care. It'll stop eventually. Nothing life threatening.

He glances sideways at the woman drinking there.

"Who goes to a bar and orders a soda?"

He raises an eyebrow at her.

It doesn't sound accusatory. For once, he's just honestly curious.

[trappedbyhate]

Mio looks over at Casey. Damn, a woman. No fight prospects with this one, then. Well, at least since it's a woman she doesn't have to go through all of the effort of pretending to be nice until they hit on her and she can have an excuse to punch them. She doesn't care if this woman sees her as a bitch; it's a label she's been called many times before and something she actually takes pride in.

«People who don't drink, that's who,» Mio replies in Persian in a mildly snappish tone of voice.

As soon as Mio realizes what's coming out of her mouth she stops. «Oh for goodness sakes...» Mio says exasperatedly. « Sorry, but could you tell me what language it is I'm speaking this time?» Mio is highly unamused by the fact that her Riftpower is deciding that now is a great time to kick in. She'd thought she'd been managing to get it under control, since she'd managed to go through all of today and yesterday without speaking any other languages besides English. Apparently not. Mio mentally tells her riftpower it can go fuck itself.

[aint_nosurprise]

Casey raises an eyebrow at her when she breaks out with that. He hasn't heard anyone use that language since his two years in Afghanistan, where he spent a large chunk of his time being tortured. Casey turns to look at her. There's something predatory in his gaze this time.

It can't be helped.

It's the language that sets him on edge.

...And she doesn't even know she's speaking it. This smells like premium rift-shit.

«It's Eastern Persian. They use it in Afghanistan. How the fuck do you not know what language you're speaking?»

[trappedbyhate]

Mio closes her eyes and focuses on trying to speak English. «Have you heard of something called the Rift?» she asks, this time in Russian. Mio sighs and facepalms. At least this time she can recognize the sound of the Russian coming out of her mouth.

She tries again. «It gave me the "power" to speak in tongues.» No luck, this time it's Spanish. Mio takes a swig of her Diet Coke like she desperately wishes it were alcoholic. She doesn't really wish that because alcohol messes up her shields and causes her to start projecting all over the place, but if it didn't you'd better bet she'd be ordering a stiff drink right about now. Fucking Rift.

[allmydiredreams]

Babel is at the Athena. Or, more accurately, she's just spent about ten minutes outside of it, staring up at the building itself and seeing if she can feel everyone in the restaurant without losing a bit of herself. It didn't work out so well, hence the standing and staring blankly at the building for ten minutes thing.

But she's here (more or less) and bopping into the restaurant now. She gives Luka a little wave and her usual huge smile when she sees her tiny friend. "Hallo!" she calls, then darts over, ignoring the waitress and plopping down next to Luka. "Long time, no visuals, just journals and the network can't hold up completely all the time, can it? Not sure."

...she might be a little more out of it and nonsensical than usual, Luka. The narration apologizes for this.

[designed2kill]

Luka breaks out into a grin as well as Babel comes in. She waves at Babel to come over to her table.

"Hi Babel!" she says happily. "You're the first one here." She cocks her head slightly while she tries to make sense of what Babel is saying. After a moment she thinks she gets it. Or at least close enough. "It has been a long time. I've been absorbed by work. I should remember to see my friends more often."

[allmydiredreams]

"Work like a sponge," Babel murmurs, but does her best to bring herself back to the present, to reality, as soon as she can. It's not always good to fall into a fugue around people she doesn't know very well; she's ended up in more than one psych ward on more than one planet in more than one universe because of it. And none of them are ever fun in the long run.

So she plops down at the table, shaking herself out of her sweatshirt and draping it over the chair behind her. "Friends are things you have to keep close," she says, and her voice doesn't even falter as she does, "or else they disappear on you too soon. Before you notice."

[designed2kill]

Luka doesn't quite understand what "Work like a sponge" means, but she's learned that Babel doesn't always make sense. It's best to just go with it. She's sure the meaning will come to her in time. Or not, as the case may be.

"I'll remember that," Luka says. "I haven't had friends before, so I'm still learning how it works. I try to remember all of the explanations people give me, but I need to practice more to get it right." Only Luka would think that friendship is something that you need to practice at. The narration thinks it's cute, though.

[thehighestwing]

Phoebe never means to be late. She is just very easily distracted, and finding the perfect outfit for an outing with good friends is always a Very Big Deal.

She goes for the bohemian look, which is her favorite. An assortment of wide bangles jingle on her wrist, a flower printed dress billows behind her, and her favorite accessory--the bandana--is wrapped securely around her hair.

"Hi, Luka!" Phoebe flashes her one of her brightest smiles once she's spotted her. "What's kicking?"

[designed2kill]

Luka smiles back at Phoebe when she comes in. "Hi Phoebe!" She waves Phoebe over to her table.

She is however, slightly baffled by Phoebe's question. "I haven't kicked anyone today," she says, slightly unsure. "Or is that not what you meant?" Luka is well aware of Phoebe's odd turns of speech.

[thehighestwing]

She grins guiltily as she joins Luka at the table.

Just like Luka remembers Phoebe has her own way of speaking, Phoebe remembers not everyone is used to it just yet. "Sorry! I meant, what's new with you? We haven't talked in a while!"

This might be because Phoebe became a hermit after Jo died, not that she'll admit it.

[designed2kill]

"..." Luka's not quite sure how one gets from "What's new with you?" to "What's kicking?", but she'll just go with it for the moment.

"I've been helping out a lot in the office lately," Luka says as she regains her footing. "I'm getting a lot better with paperwork. I don't like it as much as doing jobs, but it's better than not being useful at all when no one gives us work." And that's about as much detail as she'll go into about recent developments at work. While J knows what she does, neither Babel nor Phoebe have any idea about the true nature of her job and she intends to keep it that way.

"What have you been doing recently?" Luka figures it's only fair to ask the same question in return.

[hey_capn_jack]

J arrives what he likes to call "fashionably late" and what others who know him like to call "damned annoying." He pokes his head in and tries to pinpoint Luka's location before a waiter can approach him; the fewer people he has to explain his odd friendship to, himself included, the better.

Once he's located her, he heads on over without waiting for anyone to direct him. Sometimes, acting like you know exactly what you're doing (and have clearance to do so, in such areas where clearance applies) gets you through a remarkable amount of potential trouble.

"Hello hello," he says, sliding into an open chair at her table and trying not to look as though he doesn't belong. It... sorta works. "Hope I'm not holding anything up."

[designed2kill]

"Hi J!" Luka says when he comes over. "No, you're not holding anything up, but I was beginning to wonder if you had maybe gotten lost. That would have been bad."

"Do you know Babel and Phoebe?" Luka asks. ((If Indy is actually existing in this post, insert mention to Indy here as well.))

[hey_capn_jack]

A quick re-inventory of the people at the table, and J flashes a grin. He's not entirely at ease, though it would take an empath to know it; mostly it's uncertainty of what to expect, and he's trying to balance that on the old Jack view of life that says that feeling's just a call to adventure.

Call that about a 63% success rate, right now.

"I know that one," he says, indicating Babel. (And Indy, if Indy indeed exists.) "Never met this charming young lady," he says, with a hand out to Phoebe. "I'm Ca- ...J. I'm J."

[thehighestwing]

Phoebe looks up from her sundae. A dash of whipped cream is splashed on the tip of her nose, which she proceeds to immediately wipe with her napkin. It gets in the way of her beaming at J, you see.

"Halo thar!" She shakes his hand, and nods as if approving his method for handshaking. "I don't know about charming, and I'm really not much of a lady, but!"

She holds her index finger upward, grinning at him; a mixture of soft and mischief. "It's nice to finally meet you, J. I like that. J reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Men in Black. They're cool dudes monitoring alien activity and only use one-letter names. How about them apples?"

Sorry, J. This is Phoebe being... Phoebe.